The Supreme Court on Monday let off convicted senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, held guilty in contempt of court, with a nominal fine of Re 1.
However, the court added that if Bhushan fails to pay a fine of Re 1, he will be sentenced to 3 months in jail and suspension of his lawyering for 3 months.
The top court had last week reserved its judgment in the case after Attorney General KK Venugopal and defence lawyer Dr Dhawan argued before the court that Bhushan should not be made ‘martyr’ in the contempt case and instead forgiven with a message to not repeat such acts.
Prashant Bhushan was held guilty in contempt case over his two tweets
Last month, the top court, in a landmark judgement, held advocate Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt of court. The case pertained to two tweets where Prashant Bhushan had cast aspersions against the Supreme Court and specifically, CJI Bobde.
The court had then granted additional time for Mr Bhushan to consider providing an unconditional apology for his scurrilous remarks. However, in his vanity of portraying himself as Mahatma Gandhi, Mr Bhushan refused to apologise, claiming tendering an apology would tantamount to “contempt of his conscience”.
Instead, Prashant Bhushan submitted a supplementary statement in the contempt case, digging his heels in and declining to apologise for his tweets that maligned the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of India.