The Supreme Court on Friday held advocate Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt in a case registered against him over two of his tweets. The court will hear the arguments on the quantum of punishment on August 20.
The matter relates to some tweets by Bhushan but specific details are not known.
On June 29, Bhushan had tweeted on a photo of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde astride a Harley Davidson motorcycle. While taking up the matter for hearing, a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra also took note of another tweet by the advocate on June 27 regarding the judiciary which it said was published in The Times of India.
On August 5, the top court had reserved its verdict in the matter after Bhushan had defended his posts on the micro-blogging site, saying they were against the judges regarding their conduct in their personal capacity and they did not obstruct administration of justice.
On July 22, the top court issued a show cause notice to the lawyer after initiating the criminal contempt against him after taking note of a petition.
Currently, Bhushan is appearing in the Supreme Court for the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, seeking transfer of PM Cares funds to the National Disaster Response Fund. He also represents the Association for Democratic Reforms in a petition challenging the Electoral Bond Scheme.
What is Contempt of Court?
According to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be Civil Contempt or Criminal Contempt.
Civil contempt means wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
On the other hand, criminal contempt means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which
(i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or
(ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or
(iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.
A contempt of court may be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees, or with both, provided that the accused may be discharged or the punishment awarded may be remitted on apology being made to the satisfaction of the court.
Source Link
Picture Source :