New Delhi: Activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan has been convicted and fined by the Supreme Court for contempt of court. However, Prashant Bhushan continues to spew fire. He said this power is sometimes misused in an attempt to stifle free speech or discussion about the judiciary. Bhushan called the contempt of court jurisdiction ‘very dangerous’ and said it should be abolished.
“Every citizen in a democracy should be able to speak freely. Especially those, who are familiar with the working of the judicial system and the Supreme Court. Unfortunately that has also been treated as contempt of court by scandalising,” Bhushan stated at a webinar.
“In this the judge acts as accuser prosecutor and as a judge,” Bhushan added. The webinar, ‘Freedom of Speech and The Indian Judiciary’, was organised by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia.
“It is a very dangerous jurisdiction in which judges act in their own cause. That is why in all countries this power to punish has been abolished. It is only continued in few countries like India,” Bhushan pointed out.
The top court had imposed a token fine of Re 1 on Bhushan for his tweets against the judiciary. It asked him to deposit the fine by September 15. If he failed to do so he will attract a jail term of three months and debarment from law practice for three years.
Bhushan asserted that power of contempt of court is sometimes abused or misused by the judiciary in an attempt to stifle free speech. It is also used to stifle free discussion about the judiciary.
“I am not saying that there are no vile or scandalous scurrilous allegations being made against judges. They are. But they are dismissed for what they are. People understand that these are scurrilous and unsubstantiated allegations. The respect for the judiciary does not stand on the ability of the court to stifle this kind of criticism even it is sometimes scurrilous and unfair,” Bhushan said.
Bhushan also talked about the tweets that landed him into trouble. He said it was what about the role of the top court and not protecting democracy in the last six years.
The lawyer said the contempt of court should be abolished. It was for this reason that he along with former Union minister Arun Shourie and veteran journalist N Ram filed a plea challenging the constitutional validity of a legal provision dealing with criminal contempt.
“Initially the matter was listed before Justice DY Chandrachud. However, later it was removed from him and sent before Justice Arun Mishra (retired Wednesday). His views views on this contempt are well known. Earlier also he had accused me of scandalising and contempt of court just because I had told former CJIs Justice JS Khehar, Dipak Misra and him that they should not hear a case due to conflict of interest,” he informed.
Bhushan said that he is hopeful that this focus on the business of scandalising the court will lead to reform in the law. In the process it will abolish this part of criminal contempt as it is an unreasonable restriction on freedom of speech.