A three-judge Bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and MR Shah of Supreme Court on Friday decided to proceed with the criminal contempt of court case against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra and cartoonist Rachita Taneja for their Tweets criticising the top court.
The Court has also issued the notice for Contempt of Court to both the parties with respect to the same.
The following four tweets of Kunal highlighting contempt of court were granted consent for contempt proceedings by AG Venugopal on 12th November:
1. The Supreme Court of this country is the most Supreme joke of this country…
2 .The pace at which the Supreme Court operates in matters of “National Interests” it’s time we replace Mahatma Gandhi’s photo with Harish Salve’s photo…
3. DY Chandrachud is a flight attendant serving champagne to first class passengers after they’re fast tracked through, while commoners don’t know if they’ll ever be boarded or seated, let alone served.
4. All lawyers with a spine must stop the use of the prefix “Hon’ble” while referring to the Supreme Court or its judges. Honour has left the building long back…
The Attorney General stated that the four tweets by Kamra were “not only in bad taste but clearly cross the line between humor and contempt of the court.”
On another disrespectful tweet by Kunal stating, “One of these 2 fingers is for CJI Arvind Bobde…ok let me not confuse you it’s the middle one,” an advocate at the Allahabad High Court filed a complaint claiming that the tweet had gone viral and brought disrepute to the institution of the judiciary.
The consent for Contempt of Court proceedings was granted by AG in a plea against Taneja by a law student in which it was stated that tweets by Taneja on her twitter profile, Sanitarypanels has “threatened the very existence of the Supreme Court.”
