Contempt case against Bhushan over tweets

New Delhi The Supreme Court has initiated suo moto criminal contempt proceedings against advocate Prashant Bhushan over his tweets about the judiciary.The petition

New Delhi The Supreme Court has initiated suo moto criminal contempt proceedings against advocate Prashant Bhushan over his tweets about the judiciary.The petition is listed for hearing on Wednesday before a bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari.

HT Image

While Bhushan has been named as the first contemnor, the suo moto contempt has also been initiated against the Indian arm of Twitter, Twitter Communications India Private Limited with its registered office at Bandra (East) in Mumbai.

It wasn’t immediately clear which tweet or tweets by Bhushan provoked the contempt action against him. Bhushan has made tweets critical of the court and some of its judges on two instances. HT is not reproducing the contents of these in the event that they are not the matter of judicial scrutiny. The suo moto contempt petition was registered by the Court Registry on July 9.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan speaking to HT said, “It is quite early to say anything. Let us wait till the Court issues notice. At present it is mere speculation that the Court has possibly issued notice on my CJI on Motorcycle tweet or an earlier tweet where I said about the role of past CJIs in destroying democracy without a formal emergency.”

Bhushan faces two other contempt petitions in the apex court. One was filed against him in 2010 by senior advocate Harish Salve acting as Amicus Curiae (friend of the Court). Bhushan in an interview to Tehelka magazine, published in September 2010, alleged that in his view half of the past 16 CJIs were corrupt. He also criticised former CJI Justice SH Kapadia for deciding the Niyamgiri mining case involving Vedanta/Sterlite despite holding shares in Sterlite.

It now emerges that this petition, which was last heard by the top court on May 2, 2012 has been listed on Friday for hearing before the same bench that is to take up Wednesday’s criminal contempt case. The contempt petition was held maintainable by a three-judge bench on November 10, 2010 following which the case was heard on 17 occasions. Interestingly, Bhushan’s father and former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan filed an application bringing on record the instances of corruption against six CJIs. This was produced in a sealed cover ; the Court is yet to open the seal.

The other contempt petition against Bhushan was filed in March 2019 by the present Attorney General KK Venugopal and the Union of India through Secretary to the Government , C Chandramouli. In their separate contempt petitions, they highlighted a February 1, 2019 tweet by Bhushan alleging that the Government misled the Court about the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as interim Director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). That matter too is being heard by a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.

As the appointment of Nageswara Rao was challenged by Bhushan in a PIL, the A-G informed the Court that the High Powered Committee of January 10, 2019 took the decision to appoint Rao. Countering this, Bhushan tweeted that he spoke to Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, one of the Selection Committee members, who confirmed to him that the decision on Rao’s appointment was not taken by the committee.

During the proceedings, Bhushan accepted that he made a “genuine mistake” on his part and apologized to the Court. A-G Venugopal agreed to withdraw his contempt plea. Meanwhile, Bhushan filed an application seeking Justice Mishra’s recusal from the case on the grounds that he did not expect to get a fair hearing from Justice Mishra in the contempt case. Following this, the centre remained firm that the contempt plea should not be dropped. The court decided to examine whether it was open for anyone to criticize the court proceedings in order to influence public opinion and to what extent this affects the rights of litigants and administration of justice. The matter was last heard in April 2019.

Bhushan refused to comment on both the contempt petitions pending against him since March 2019.