An Act to define and limit the powers of certain courts in punishing contempts of courts and to regulate their procedure in relation thereto. Be it enacted by Parliament in the Twenty-second Year of the Republic of India as follows :  1. Short title and extent. ? (1) This Act may be called the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. (2) It extends to the whole of India: Provided that it shall not apply to the State of Jammu and Kashmir except to the extent to which the provisions of this Act relate to contempt of the Supreme Court. Definitions. ? In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, ? ?(a)? ?contempt of court? means civil contempt or criminal contempt; ?(b)? ?civil contempt? means wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court;(c)? ?criminal contempt? means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which ? (i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or (ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or (iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner; (d) ?High Court? means the High Court for a State or a Union territory, and includes the court of the Judicial Commissioner in any Union territory