Contempt Proceedings Against Prashant Bhushan, Twitter

Jul 22, 2020, 13:16 IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Tuesday initiated suo motu (on its own) contempt proceedings against activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan for his alleged derogatory tweets against the judiciary. It also initiated contempt proceedings against micro-blogging Twitter India where Bhushan had posted his remarks.

The matter is scheduled to be heard on Wednesday by a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.

Bhushan has been raising issues pertaining to judiciary and recently he was very critical and vocal of the way in which the top court handled the matters related to migrant workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He also made statements relating to the treatment meted out to jailed activists like Varavara Rao and Sudha Bharadwaj who are accused in Bhima-Koregaon case.

As of now, it is not clear as to which tweets of Bhushan have been prime facie construed as contemptous by the apex court.

A leading legal website speculated that Bhushan’s tweet criticising the Supreme Court role of the last four chief justices – Justices S.A. Bobde, Ranjan Gogoi, Dipak Misra and J.S. Khehar – for having played a role in the destruction of democracy “without a formal Emergency”, could be behind it.

"When historians in future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs," bhushan had tweeted on June 27.

Some others speculated that it could be on his take on Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde for riding a motorcycle without a helmet or mask.

Earlier also, the apex court in November 2009, had issued contempt notice to Bhushan for allegedly casting aspersions on some sitting and former top court judges in an interview to a news magazine. The matter which was not heard by the apex court as per the record available on the top court's website since May 2012 is now listed for hearing on July 24.

The pending contempt matter of 2009 against Bhushan will also be heard by a bench headed by Justice Mishra on Friday as per the list of business of July 24, uploaded on the apex court website.