NET News Desk
The Supreme Court on Friday held activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt for his two derogatory tweets against the judiciary.
The tweets in question which were posted by Bhushan on Twitter on June 27 and June 29 were critical of the apex court. The June 27 tweet said, “When historians in future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs.”
The June 29 tweet included a photo of CJI S.A. Bobde seated on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and said, “CJI rides a 50 lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC in Lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access Justice!”
As per reports, a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said it would hear on August 20 the arguments on quantum of sentence to be awarded to Bhushan in the matter.
Earlier, the apex court had on August 5 reserved its verdict in the matter after Bhushan had defended his two tweets, saying they were against the judges regarding their conduct in their personal capacity and they did not obstruct the administration of justice.
On July 22, the top court had issued a show cause notice to Bhushan after initiating the criminal contempt against him after taking note of a petition.
As reported in News 18, replying to the contempt notice in a detailed affidavit, Bhushan had stated that expression of bona fide opinion about the Court cannot amount to contempt. He submitted that there were several shortcomings in the functioning of the judiciary, which warranted criticism.
