The Supreme Court has held senior advocate Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt of court for his tweets against Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and Supreme Court.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said Bhushan was found to have committed “serious” contempt, and the hearing for punishment in the case will be held on August 20. The order was passed today by a Bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari.
The punishment for contempt of court for Prashant Bhushan can go up to six months in jail, or fine, or both.
The top court on August 5 had reserved its verdict in the matter after Bhushan defended his two alleged contemptuous tweets saying they were against the judges regarding their conduct in their personal capacity and they did not obstruct administration of justice.
Also Read: The Proceedings In Prashant Bhushan’s Contempt Case To Be on August 17
On July 22, the top court had issued a show cause notice to Bhushan after initiating the criminal contempt against him for his two tweets.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave had submitted that Prashant Bhushan was only airing bona fide criticism against the judiciary without any malice.
The tweet highlighted by Maheshwari was made on June 29, 2020. In this tweet, advocate Prashant Bhushan had stated:
“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!”
After the Court issued notice on its suo motu contempt case, Twitter withheld this tweet.
The other tweet was made on June 27, in which Bhushan 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.“
