On Friday, November 26, the Supreme Court directed the Registry to issue a show cause notice for initiating criminal contempt proceedings against a petitioner who called a Supreme Court judge a ‘terrorist’. “You must be sent to jail for a few months then you will realise,” a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli told the litigant, calling his allegations “scandalous.”
The Apex court was hearing an application filed by the person seeking an early hearing in a pending matter. The CJI was enraged that ‘scandalous allegations’ were levelled against a sitting Supreme Court judge with no evidence to back them up.
“You have made scandalous accusations against a Judge of the Supreme Court. What interest will the Judge have in your matter? You say all these because the judge is from your state?,” CJI remarked.
After reading the file, an advocate for the petitioner told the bench that he had asked the litigant to unconditionally apologize for making such averments. The lawyer stated that he will only represent him if the man offers an unconditional apology.
“I tender my apology,” the man said, adding that he was experiencing “tremendous mental trauma as there was corona“ at the time he filed the application.
The petitioner had filed two applications, one in March 2021 and the second one in July 2021. In both applications, the petitioner in person had levelled similar allegations. Directing the registry to issue a show cause notice to the petitioner, the application was dismissed and the hearing was listed after three weeks.
“The petitioner has made scandalous allegations against a Judge of this Court in support of his application for an early hearing. We are not inclined to entertain the application for an early hearing. The application shall stand dismissed,” the court ruled.
The bench recorded the petitioner’s unconditional apology, however, to determine the genuineness of the apology, the bench granted three weeks to the petitioner to file an affidavit explaining his conduct.
