Attorney General KK Venugopal has granted consent for initiating contempt against artist Rachita Taneja for depicting the Supreme Court as biased towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in successive tweets published soon after the top court granted bail to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami last month.
A law student Aditya Kashyap brought these tweets to the notice of the top law officer of the country for grant of consent under the Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court of India, before lodging a contempt petition against her.
Venugopal examined the three tweets by Taneja, the creator of the webcomic Sanitary Panels, and found them to be in contempt of SC. The first tweet depicts Goswami asking the SC if it knows who his father is (the tweet shows figures purportedly representing Goswami, the court, and the BJP). “The clear implication (of the tweet) would be that SC is biased towards the ruling party BJP and would tailor its judgments for benefit of the ruling party.”
The second tweet depicted the SC as “Sanghi Court of India”, an apparent reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) with the flag of the BJP in place of the tricolour atop the court building. The Attorney General found this to be a gross insinuation against the top court of the country to the effect that “Supreme Court has ceased to be an impartial organ of the state” He said, “The tweet is calculated to undermine public confidence in the independence and impartiality of the Supreme Court of India.”
{{/usCountry}}The second tweet depicted the SC as “Sanghi Court of India”, an apparent reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) with the flag of the BJP in place of the tricolour atop the court building. The Attorney General found this to be a gross insinuation against the top court of the country to the effect that “Supreme Court has ceased to be an impartial organ of the state” He said, “The tweet is calculated to undermine public confidence in the independence and impartiality of the Supreme Court of India.”
{{/usCountry}}Taneja’s third tweet made a reference was made to the Ayodha title suit judgment delivered by Supreme Court in November last year with the insinuation that this was delivered in favour of BJP in exchange for a favour.
The AG said, “This is a clear attempt to turn the minds of the people against the then Chief Justice of India, and in the bargain against the judiciary as a whole. It is deliberately intended to shake the confidence that people have in the apex court of the country and to lower the authority of this institution.”
On November 12, AG Venugopal gave consent to initiate contempt proceedings against standup comic Kunal Kamra. Kamra in a series of tweets lampooned the Supreme Court as the supreme “joke” of India and even put out a tweet showing the Supreme Court draped in saffron and replacing the Indian Tricolour with the party flag of the BJP. Those tweets too were in the context of the Goswami case. The TV journalist was granted bail by the apex court which said that states should not use the law to “harass citizens” and that high courts need to protect the liberty of individuals (the Bombay high court had denied bail to Goswami in the case, which involved charges of abetment of suicide).
Terming the tweets as “gross insinuation” against the Supreme Court and its judges, Venugopal held the tweets to be in “bad taste” and found Kamra guilty of having crossed the line between humour and contempt. “Under the Constitution, the freedom of speech is subject to the law of contempt and I believe that it is time that people understand that attacking the Supreme Court of India unjustifiably and brazenly will attract punishment under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1972,” he said at the time. Following this , a contempt petition has been filed in Supreme Court against Kamra which is yet to come up for hearing.