The Supreme Court will pronounce on Friday its judgment in the contempt of court case initiated suo motu (on its own) against lawyer Prashant Bhushan for his tweets against the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde.
A three-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra and also comprising justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari will deliver its verdict at 11 am.
Bhushan posted two tweets, one on the Supreme Court on June 27 and the second on CJI Bobde on June 29. He was served notice by the SC on July 22.
The first tweet, reproduced in the court order, said: “When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the SC in this destruction, and more particularly the role of the last four CJIs.” The second tweet said: “The CJI rides a Rs 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!”
Bhushan, in his affidavit, regretted saying Bobde was not wearing a helmet. He added he failed to notice the bike was stationary and that the CJI was not riding but merely sitting on it. The court had reserved its verdict in the matter on August 5.
Another suo motu contempt petition is also pending before the same three-judge bench against Bhushan for calling past CJIs corrupt in a 2009 interview to Tehelka magazine. Bhushan had offered an explanation but the Supreme Court refused to accept the same and ruled, on August 10, that it will hear the matter in detail. That case is now listed for hearing on August 17.
Meanwhile, a petition filed before the apex court by Bhushan along with former Union minister Arun Shourie and journalist N Ram challenging the law criminalising contempt of court was withdrawn by them on Thursday.
Senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan, who represented the petitioners, sought the permission of the court to withdraw the petition citing pendency of similar cases against Prashant Bhushan before the top court.
