Short answer. Yes, in one specific situation. When contempt consists in refusing or omitting to do an act which is yet in the person's power to perform, the court may imprison them until they perform it. The confinement is coercive, not punitive — compliance, at any moment, opens the jail door.
What the law says
When the contempt consists in the refusal or omission to do an act which is yet in the power of the respondent to perform, he may be imprisoned by order of the court concerned until he performs it.
Rule 71, Section 8 — Imprisonment until order obeyed. Read the full provision →
Coercion, not punishment
The rule reads: when the contempt consists in the refusal or omission to do an act which is yet in the power of the respondent to perform, he may be imprisoned by order of the court concerned until he performs it. Notice what kind of imprisonment this is. It has no fixed term, because it is not a sentence — it is pressure. The classic description is that the contemner carries the keys to the jail in his own pocket: sign the deed, deliver the property, produce the document, and the confinement ends. The point is obedience, not retribution.
The condition that limits everything: 'yet in his power'
The rule's own words carry its most important limit. Indefinite confinement is available only where the act is yet in the power of the respondent to perform. Coercion only makes sense against someone who can comply but will not; jailing a person to force the impossible would be pure punishment dressed as coercion. So the decisive factual question in these disputes is capability. A respondent who genuinely cannot perform — the money is gone, the property no longer exists, the document was never in their hands — is contesting the very premise on which this remedy rests.
Where this remedy typically appears
This provision belongs to the law of contempt, and it attaches to orders that command a specific act: turning over property or funds, executing a conveyance, producing records, restoring something taken. It is the court's answer to the litigant who has lost, has been ordered to act, and simply refuses — betting that the judgment will remain words on paper. The rule converts the standoff: the refusal itself becomes the ground for confinement, and time in custody accumulates until the act is done. For the winning party, it is often the remedy that finally makes a judgment real.
If you are on the receiving end
Take a contempt citation of this kind with complete seriousness — the exposure is open-ended. If you can comply, the arithmetic is rarely close: perform the act and end the matter, because every alternative is worse. If you truly cannot comply, that inability is your defence, and it must be raised squarely and proven with evidence, not asserted from the jailhouse later. And if you believe the underlying order itself is wrong, raise that through the proper challenge with counsel's help; quietly disobeying an order while it stands is exactly the conduct this rule exists to break.