The Supreme Court will hear two contempt of court cases against advocate Prashant Bhushan on Tuesday. One of the two is based on two tweets put out by Bhushan criticizing the court and the chief justice of India (CJI), SA Bobde. It will be heard with regard to the sentence to be handed down to Bhushan.
The court on August 14 held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt in this case and had kept the matter for further hearing to decide on the punishment. When the case was heard on August 20 to decide on the sentence, Bhushan refused to apologise.
The court granted him time till Monday to reconsider his stance but Bhushan stood his ground and submitted a statement on Monday that he stands by his tweets. He said that the views expressed by him through his tweets represented his bona fide (good faith) beliefs and, therefore, an apology for expressing such beliefs would be insincere.
A three-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra will now consider this statement on Tuesday and decide on the course of action to be adopted.
According to the Contempt of Courts Act, the offence carries a punishment of up to six months in prison or a fine up to Rs 2,000 or both.
The same bench, which also comprises justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, will hear a second contempt of court case against Bhushan. This case dates back to 2009 and relates to Bhushan’s comments calling past CJIs corrupt in a 2009 interview to Tehelka magazine.
Senior advocate Harish Salve brought the comments to the attention of the court based on which contempt action was initiated against him in November 2009.
The case was listed by the top court on July 24 over eight years after it was last heard. Bhushan refused to apologise for his statement but offered an explanation to the court regarding his remarks. The court on August 10 rejected Bhushan’s explanation and decided to proceed with the case and hear it in detail.
When the case was heard on August 17, the court said that certain larger legal issues need to be settled including whether allegations of corruption against judges can be made by way of public statements and the procedure to be adopted when such allegations are raised.
