Supreme Court held Bhushan guilty for contempt of court but gave him time to Apologise, Prashant Bhushan stands firm 'sorry, not sorry'
Supreme Court bench of
Hon’ble Jts. Arun Mishra, B.R. Garvi and Krishna Murari has issued notice of contempt
of court against Sr. Advocate Prashant Bhushan over his tweet on 22nd
of July. The supreme court initiated a Suo Moto contempt proceeding against him
over his 2 tweets. The Supreme Court has also provided Mr. Prashant Bhushan with
the adequate chances to apologise for his behaviour and statement published. The
court said that they are prima facie of the view that these statements have
bought the administration of justice in disrepute, the statement is capable of undermining
the dignity and authority of the institution of Supreme Court and especially to the office of Chief Justice of India in the eyes of public at large.
The judgement has been given
by the Supreme Court in which they have convicted Mr. Prashant Bhushan for the
contempt of court. The court has not revealed
the author of judge in the judgement, just like Babri Masjid case judgement.
What is contempt of court
The contempt of court means to disrespect or disobedience towards the
court of law and its officers. Any behaviour which defies the respect,
authority and dignity of the court will be charged with the contempt of court.
In India, there are 2 types of contempt of court: Civil contempt u/s 2 (b) and
Criminal contempt under section 2 (c) of the Contempt of Courts Act 1971. Civil
contempt means willful disobedience of any order, judgement, decree, writ or
direction passed by the court of law. And criminal contempt means any
publication, spoken words, signs or any visible representation which (1) lowers
or tends to lower the authority of the court, (2) interfere or tend to
interfere with the court proceedings or (3) interfere or tend to interfere with
the administration of justice in any
manner.
History of the Act: In the year 1961 a committee was
established to determine the limit of certain court in punishing contempt of
court and to regulate their procedure. This committee submitted its report on
28th February 1963 which was then studied by the Joint
Select Committee of Parliament on contempt of court. They prepared a new bill
The Contempt of Court Bill 1968 which was passed by parliament in
1971.
The 274th Law Commission had submitted in a report to
the Ministry of Law and Justice their suggestion to keep the Contempt of Court
Act prevailing and that there is no necessity to make amendment in the
following Act.
What are Suo Moto proceedings
That the supreme court takes the cognizance on its own. It does not
require any Petition, PIL (Public Interest Litigation), Suit etc to be filed.
If the court gets the information for any violation of right or duty then the
Supreme Court and High Court has the power to take Suo Moto cognizance. This
reflects the judicial activism of the Indian courts in order to deliver speedy
justice to everyone, even to the people who might not be able to afford it. In
India generally, it is the Supreme Court who takes the Suo Moto cognizance of
the case and mostly in the matter related to Contempt of court, Reopening old
case or Order probe for a new case. The Supreme Court derives the power to take
So Moto cognizance from article 131 (Original Jurisdiction of the Supreme
Court) of the Constitution and under article 32 of the Constitution the court
can issue any direction to do or refrain to do an act. There are many cases in
which the Supreme Court took the Suo Moto cognizance, for eg: Murthal rape case
(2016), Kathua rape case (2018), Cases of COVID 19 in children homes of Chennai
(2020) etc.
Suo Moto has its geneses from the concept of ‘Epistolary Jurisdiction’
which means acting on the behalf of the oppressed people. This concept emerges
in the 17th century through judicial activism. This strategy is
adopted in order to facilitate access to justice especially for the poor, socially
and economically disadvantageous sections of the society. Well, the epistolary
jurisdiction is also the geneses for the PIL as said by Jts V.R. Krishna Iyer
in the case of Fertilizer Corporation Kamgar Union v UoI[1].
Total number of contempt cases in India?
As per the Supreme Court’s own statistics, there are as many as 96,310
as per 2016-17 civil contempt cases pending in Indian courts. And around in the
80% of the cases, it is the government who is the party to this. Because if any
order if not being followed court issues contempt of court proceedings against
the perpetrator. In the Allahabad High Court itself there are 29,530 civil
cases pending. And around 700 criminal contempt cases are pending in different High
Courts of India.
Judgement against Bhushan
The court has held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt of court. Mr
Bhushan may face the maximum punishment of imprisonment for 6 months or a fine
of Rs. 2,000 or both if proven guilty. Though the court has given time till 24th of
August to him to reconsider his defiant statement and refusal to apologise for
the same.
Jts. Arun Mishra said that we have heard the case on merits and found
Bhushan guilty. So, the determination of guilt stage is completed. Now the
judges will discuss the aggravating (evidence against the accuse) and
mitigating (evidence in favour of the accuse) factors of the case in order to
decide the punishment.
Bhusha’s submission to the court
The Supreme Court has rejected his submission that another bench should
hear the arguments and decide the quantum of punishment in the case. The bench
has given assurance that the decision will be just and fair and punishment will
not be enforced till the review plea will be decided.
Lawyers Support to
Bhushan
There are as many as 1,500 lawyers across the country who expressed
‘dismay’ over the conviction of advocate Bhushan. A lot many jurists, former
judges, bar association and experts are also writing or giving a statement
against the court’s judgement in the Prashant Bhushan case. This has obviously
put a question mark over the dignity of the court. They said that the court
should not use the name ‘for the sake of protection of people’s
interest’ for exercising the contempt power in this case as this power is being used for personal interest of the judges. The lawyers
said that this judgement will have a chilling effect (inhibition to exercise
natural or legal right) on the freedom of speech.
Criticism
Many judgments say that contempt proceedings do not provide protection
to the judges personally but to the court rather. In the para 48 of the
judgement Supreme Court said that ‘when the court exercises this power,
it does not do so to vindicate the dignity and honour of a particular judge who
is personally attacked or scandalised but to uphold the majesty of law and of
administration of justice’. In para 71 court said that for democracy, the judiciary
is central, whereas many believe that it is the parliament which is in the centre.
We have seen judiciary participating actively for securing its own right as we
saw as in when the Supreme Court struck down the NJAC and asserted its
independence. But when it comes to people’s interest many experts believe the
court fails to show that enthusiasm, for eg: delayed justice in the matter of
habeas corpus cases, didn’t examine the constituency of CAA in which a lot many
people lost their lives, didn’t have time for the matter of the electoral bond,
sealed cover jurisprudence and many more instances.
Like the politicians who act for personal on whims in the name of
people’s interest, if same is done by judiciary then the people will question
judiciary that whether it is tilting towards executive and in the name of
judicial activism is it performing judicial overreach. ‘Judicial overreach
is basically slightly different from judicial activism. In judicial activism
judiciary within its limits articulate laws for the society’s interest, whereas
in judicial overreach it crosses its limit and start to perform executive and
legislative functions and hence interfering with the proper functioning of the
government which is undesirable for democracy.’
It is basically to protect the rule of law, people’s interest. So that
any distrust shall not be created in the mind of people against the court of
law. Confidence in the people towards judiciary is not created by the way of
punishment given in the contempt proceedings but rather by looking at the court's
action, inaction and performance.
Also read - Is the Rajasthan Government's Crisis Over? - Know about the Governor's Power and Anti-Defection Law
[1] [1981]
SC 344 (AIR)
1 Comments
Good work, keep going
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