On Tuesday, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri released a statement in the 2018 Contempt-of-Court case to reveal that he respects the Indian judiciary and would never say or write anything that is unsubstantiated and which goes against the sanctity of the judiciary.
This is a day after the Delhi High Court discharged Agnihotri after he appeared in person and tendered an unconditional apology and reiterated his remorse over his remark made condemning S Justice S Muralidhar for granting bail to Urban Naxal Gautam Navlakha. Agnihotri on Monday, appeared physically before a division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Vikas Mahajan to tender his ‘unconditional apology and remorse.’
“Vivek Agnihotri, the alleged contemnor is present in the court in person and reiterates his remorse. He also tenders an unconditional apology for the allegedly offensive statement on Twitter. The affidavit also reflects the remorse expressed by him. For the sake of completeness, the relevant are extracted. He accordingly stands discharged,” said Justice Siddharth Mridul, as the bench accepted Agnihotri’s apology and cautioned him to remain careful in the future.
Releasing a statement on Tuesday, Agnihotri tried to explain the incident and claimed that a few ‘biased’ media reports and political parties had wrongly reported the incident against him. “5 years ago, Dristhikone published an article on Gautam Navalakha who was arrested on serious charges of threatening the integrity and sovereignty of India. I merely posted the article and cited the source and author. The Delhi High Court then issued a suo moto contempt of Court against Drishtikone, S Gurumurthy and myself.”
“The article was taken down by the author with an immediate apology, followed by S Gurumurthy unconditionally apologising to the Court. This left me with no locus standi and I was morally and intellectually obligated to apologise for sharing information from a source that had retracted the article and apologized. To project it otherwise, as a fight for justice and courage would be pretentious and misplaced. Playing to the gallery by turning this issue into what it is not, is an untruthful and sheer waste of creative energy,” Agnihotri said.
Last year, in May, the Delhi High Court sent fresh notices to filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, scientist and political commentator Anand Ranganathan and Swarajya Magazine in a 2018 Contempt-of-Court case. In October 2018, The Delhi High Court initiated contempt proceedings against Economist S Gurumurthy over his article on Justice S Muralidhar, where he had questioned S Muralidhar’s credibility as the High Court judge in connection with granting bail to Gautam Navlakha, one of the accused in the Koregaon Bhima violence case. Agnihotri and Ranganathan, who had tweeted about the issue on similar lines, were slapped with charges of contempt later.
It all started when Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao wrote a letter to then Chief Justice Rajendra Menon, about an article written by S Gurumurthy alleging bias on the part of Justice Muralidhar for granting bail to Urban Naxal Gautam Navlakha in the Bhima Koregaon case. Gurumurthy penned the article “Why has Delhi High Court Justice Muralidhar’s relationship with Gautam Navlakha not been disclosed?” on Desh Kapur’s blog ‘Dhristikone’. The article was retweeted by Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri in a tweet, following which a contempt of court notice was sent to him as well.
Anand Ranganathan, who is a free speech absolutist, allegedly condemned this action by the High Court in a couple of Tweets. It was later known that the same charges had been levied against Dr Ranganathan as well.
To note, while Agnihotri mentioned in his statement on April 11 that economist S Gurumurthy had issued an unconditional apology in the case, the latter’s lawyer had informed earlier that he has not apologised in the case.
Agnihotri further indicated that he wanted to save his creative energy for creating awareness among the younger generation about the Indic civilization and India’s great history, philosophy, sacrifice, strength and achievements. “Entangling an individual in legal cases, discrediting them through fake news and consuming their time and energy in reacting all the time, thereby distracting them from their pursuit is not uncommon in our democracy,” he said.
Meanwhile, scientist and political commentator Anand Ranganathan, who was also made a party in the contempt case against Gurumurthy and Vivek Agnihotri, has agreed to appear in person before the bench during the next hearing which has been fixed for May 24.