On Friday, the Supreme Court said that there is no requirement for the Apex Court to take Attorney General's consent in initiating a criminal contempt proceeding on its own as it exercises "inherent power" under the Constitution in issuing the show cause notice.
It made this observation while rejecting activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan's petition that he was proceeded against without the consent of the country's top law officer.
The Supreme Court held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt & observed that his first tweet about the CJI S A Bobde riding a motorbike was "false, malicious & scandalous", & his second tweet about last four CJIs in last six years levelled "scurrilous allegations" which are "malicious in nature & have the tendency to scandalize the court". A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai & Krishan Murari will hear arguments on Aug 20 on the quantum of sentence to be awarded to Bhushan for its contempt.
A contemnor, in this case, can be punished with simple imprisonment of up to 6 months or with a fine of up to Rs 2,000 or both. Justice Mishra, writing the 108-page judgement for the bench, dealt with various legal arguments including the key submission of Senior Lawyer Dushyant Dave, counsel for Bhushan, that unless there was a consent of the Attorney General for India, the suo motu (on its own) proceedings could not have been initiated on the basis of the complaint of one Mahek Maheshwari.
Referring to a recent judgement in the Vijay Kurle case, the Court said the source of power of the Top Court for proceeding for the action of contempt is under Article 129 (apex court is the court of records) under the Constitution & this power is not limited in any manner by the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. "As far as the suo motu petitions are concerned, there is no requirement for taking consent of anybody, including the learned Attorney General because the Court is exercising its inherent powers to issue notice for contempt.
"It is equally well settled, that once the court takes cognizance, the matter is purely between the court & the contemnor. The only requirement is that the procedure followed is required to be just & fair & in accordance with the principles of natural justice," the SC held & rejected the submission of procedural lapse in the case. Referring to statutory schemes, it said that the Apex Court, being a Court of records, is "vested with the constitutional powers to deal with the contempt" & a provision of the Contempt of Courts Act "is not the source of the power to issue notice for contempt".
The bench said as far as suo motu petitions are concerned, the court can very well initiate the proceedings on the basis of information received by it & the only requirement is that the procedure as prescribed in a judgment has to be followed.
The Judgement said that "In the present case, the notice issued to the alleged contemnors (Bhushan & Tweeter Inc) clearly mentions the tweets on the basis of which the Court is proceeding suo motu. The alleged contemnor No.1 (Bhushan) has also clearly understood the basis on which the Court is proceeding against him as is evident from the elaborate affidavit-in-reply filed by him".
While convicting Bhushan for his 2 tweets, the Supreme Court absolved social networking company Twitter Inc of the contempt charges.
The Bench said that "Insofar as the alleged contemnor No.2 (Twitter Inc) is concerned, we accept the explanation given by it, that it is only an intermediary & that it does not have any control on what the users post on the platform. It has also shown bona fides immediately after the cognizance was taken by this Court as it has suspended both the tweets. We, therefore, discharge the notice issued to the alleged contemnor No.2".
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