On Thursday, July 14, Attorney General KK Venugopal reportedly refused to grant permission to initiate contempt of court proceedings against former justice SN Dhingra, senior counsels Rama Kumar and Aman Lekhi for their comments on the statements made by an SC bench of Justice Pardiwala and Justice Surya Kant against ex-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma.
The AG in his letter has stated that their statements is in the realm of “fair criticism” on a hearing conducted by the #SupremeCourt . Advocate Jaya Sukin had written to the AG for consent to initiate contempt for their comments.
— LawBeat (@LawBeatInd) July 14, 2022
The AG in his letter has stated that their statements are in the realm of “fair criticism” on a hearing conducted by the Supreme Court of India. Advocate Jaya Sukin had written to the AG for consent to initiate contempt for the comments by the Retired justice Dhingra, Aman Lekhi and Rama Kumar criticising the SC bench of Justice Pardiwala and Justice Surya Kant.
The trio had made scathing remarks on the disturbing statements issued by Justice Surya Kant and Justice JB Pardiwala over the recent beheading of Hindu tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur.
In a recent interaction with a news channel, retired justice SN Dhingra said that if a judge wants to deliver a speech, then, he should become a politician. SN Dhingra also asked why the Supreme Court did not include its oral comments in the written order.
“If the Supreme Court had guts, it would have given those comments as a part of the written order. The Supreme Court has only written in the order that the petition is dismissed as withdrawn. Why?” he had asked.
SN Dhingra further said, “This gives a terrible message in the country that the Supreme Court itself is high on power and nobody can stop the Supreme Court from saying anything at its own will.”
It is notable here that the Supreme Court judges Justice Surya Kant and Justice JB Pardiwala had held Nupur Sharma ‘single-handedly responsible’ for the Udaipur murder that was committed by Islamists for a mere social media post. They had stated that Sharma should have apologised to the ‘entire nation’ on TV and had added that the chaos and violence that have been unleashed across the country by Islamic organisations are because of Sharma.
The statements, however, did not make it to the official order that refused to grant Nupur Sharma permission to club all FIRs against her to Delhi.
It is notable here that TMC member Saket Gokhale had written a similar letter to AG KK Venugopal to initiate contempt proceedings against OpIndia for criticising the oral remarks made by the two judges against Nupur Sharma.
