On Thursday (January 5), the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud recused himself from hearing a contempt case against ‘comedian’ Kunal Kamra.
Citing that Kamra had made comments about one of his cases, the CJI said that the case would be placed before a different bench of Judges. “We will place this before a bench which I am not a part of because the comments were made on an order I passed. List after two weeks,” the order read.
The Contempt Case against Kunal Kamra
On November 11, 2020, Kunal Kamra went on an unhinged rant against the Supreme Court of India after it granted bail to ‘journalist’ Arnab Goswami in the ‘abetment of suicide’ case of interior designer Anvay Naik.
Arnab Goswami had challenged a Bombay High Court order of November 9 which had rejected the bail plea while asking him to move to the Sessions court for regular bail.
The ‘comedian’ took offence to the decision of the Supreme Court to grant bail to the journalist and thus cast aspersions on the integrity of the institution and the Judges. The Supreme Court of this country is the most Supreme joke of this country,” Kunal Kamra tweeted.
In another tweet, he wrote, “The pace at which the Supreme Court operates in matters of “National Interests” it’s time we replace Mahatma Gandhi’s photo with Harish Salve’s photo.”
“DY Chandrachud is a flight attendant serving champagne to first-class passengers after they’re fast-tracked through, while commoners don’t know if they’ll ever be boarded or seated, let alone served.*Justice*,” Kunal Kamra said in another tweet.
In one tweet, the ‘comedian’ pleaded with lawyers to stop referring Judges with the prefix ‘Honourable.’ He remarked, “All lawyers with a spine must stop the use of the prefix “Hon’ble” while referring to the Supreme Court or its judges. Honour has left the building long back…”
Soon after, multiple petitions were filed against Kunal Kamra for ‘criminal contempt of court’ under the Article 129 of The Constitution of India,1950 and the Contempt of Courts Act,1972.
The then Attorney General KK Venugopal granted his consent to filing petitions against the ‘comedian.’ On December 18 of that year, the Supreme Court issued a show-cause notice to Kunal Kamra for his tweets.
Kunal Kamra downplayed his derogatory remarks against the Judiciary as ‘jokes’ that are intended to make people laugh. “Just as the Supreme Court values the faith public places in it, it should also trust the public not to form its opinions of the Court on the basis of a few jokes on Twitter,” he said in January 2021.