A petition has been filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to hold Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) co-convener Saurav Das in contempt of court. The submission has been made after he attributed political motivations to the court’s recent order to release pending dearness allowance/dearness relief (DA/DR) pertaining to the employees and retirees of the Punjab government.
On 3rd August, a bench consisting of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor handed down the judgement. Mishra served as the court’s acting chief justice at the time. The plea has been put forth by advocate Nitin Garg, who is the State General Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) Punjab Unit. Das is accused of making false claims about the court’s judgement by him.
According to the petitioner, the CJP leader challenged the ruling on 20th August and asserted that the case had been covertly removed from another “independent bench” in breach of the roster. He highlighted that the latter scandalised the verdict with his X (previously Twitter) post and called it a tool of party politics.
The appeal mentioned that the court had extended the deadline to a “workable fresh time-limit” rather than lowering it from 30 to 15 days. Additionally, it pointed out that Justice Mishra’s name was nominated by the Supreme Court Collegium and he was not appointed Chief Justice on 6th August.
“To convert a recommendation into a ‘promotion’ and then to invite the reader to infer a quid pro quo with ‘the BJP,’ is a knowing use of a false major premise to support a defamatory conclusion,” the plea read. According to Garg, the statements made by Das amounted to accusations about the independence and integrity of the legal system and went beyond acceptable criticism of a court decision.
Garg argued that the post was an assault on the apex court, the collegium system and the entire framework of judicial selections. Thus, he requested that the comment should be removed from the social media platform while criminal contempt of court proceedings should be started against him.
Garg has also sought an unconditional apology from Das on X Corp, which has been impleaded as a respondent. The platform is also asked to take action regarding the social media content and the preservation of electronic documents.
What did Das share on social media?
“Another controversy has hit the Punjab & Haryana High Court again. Its Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) had withdrawn a politically sensitive case relating to Dearness Allowance of PSPCL from another bench that had a reputation of being independent, heard it himself in violation of the roster since such matters were not before him, and passed an order on 3 August against the Government of Punjab, a political adversary of the BJP, creating a financial liability of Rs 20,000 crores. He even reduced the time period to pay the amount from 30 days to 15 days, which in all terms is a practical impossibility. Remember, Punjab’s debt-related issue is being raked up before the upcoming state election,” Das had claimed on social media.
He added, “Days later, on 6 August, the ACJ gets promoted as the Chief Justice of the same High Court. Is this a coincidence?” The CJP “cockroach” further targeted former Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sheel Nagu, who was recently elevated to the Supreme Court.
“If you remember, I had reported how the previous Chief Justice too had violated the roster to withdraw and list politically sensitive cases related to AAP-to-BJP defector MPs. That Chief Justice was elevated to the Supreme Court recently. Why are roster violations and misuse of master of roster powers being accepted? Several such instances in opposition-ruled states. We must guard our institutions from being weaponised to meet political ends,” alleged.
Notably, CJP leaders Das and Ashutosh Ranka recently consented to delete defamatory posts from social media after the Delhi High Court admonished them regarding AI-generated uploads that they incorrectly attributed to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gaurav Bhatia, who has initiated a defamation lawsuit for Rs 2 crore.
