The Supreme Court on Friday held senior advocate Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt for tweets against the Court and the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde.
Bhushan on June 27 had posted a tweet on SC and on CJI Bobde on June 29 and he was served notice by the apex court on July 22.
The Supreme Court on August 5 reserved its verdict in the matter after Bhushan defended his two tweets.
He said that the tweets were against the judges regarding their conduct in their personal capacity and they did not obstruct the administration of justice.
“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,” read Bhushan’s first tweet.
In his second tweet, Bhushan wrote, “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!”
In his affidavit, Bhushan regretted saying Bobde was not wearing a helmet.
However, he also added that he failed to notice the bike was stationary and that the CJI was not riding but merely sitting on it.
The Supreme Court On July 22 had issued a show-cause notice to Bhushan after initiating the criminal contempt against him for his two tweets.
