Contempt Case: Prashant Bhushan Asked to Pay Rs 1 Fine or Suffer 3 Months Jail and 3 Years Suspension of License

The Supreme Court on Monday asked advocate Prashant Bhushan to pay a fine Rs. 1, failing which he would be sentenced to 3 months in jail and his license to practice would be suspended for 3 years.

The deadline to deposit the fine has been fixed for September 15.

A three-judge bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari handed down the punishment to Bhushan for two tweets for which he was found guilty of contempt of court.

The bench also observed that the publication of Bhushan’s statement even before the bench could have gone through it, amounted to interference in the administration of justice.

The bench, however, took into consideration the advice of the Attorney General to consider Bhushan’s past conduct of doing social work while considering any punishment.

Also Read: Will not retract tweets, will not apologize, reiterates Prashant Bhushan

Bhushan had refused to apologise for the two tweets.

“My tweets were nothing but a small attempt to discharge what I considered to be my highest duty at this juncture in the history of our republic. I did not tweet in a fit of absence mindedness. It would be insincere and contemptuous on my part to offer an apology for the tweets that expressed what was and continues to be my bonafide belief”, Bhushan had said.

Attorney General K K Venugopal had urged the court not to punish Bhushan.

On August 14, the Supreme Court held advocate Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt of court for his two tweets regarding the institution of the Supreme Court and the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI).

In his first tweet on June 27, Bhushan had said, “When historians in future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs.”

Also Read: Contempt Unbound: The Supreme Court on Prashant Bhushan

Likewise, the second tweet dated June 29 commented on a viral picture that showed CJI Bobde on a Harley Davidson bike. The tweet in question read: “CJI rides a 50 lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC in Lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access Justice!”

A three-judge bench led by Justice Mishra held that the tweets were an attempt to shake the very foundation of constitutional democracy and hence must be dealt with an ‘iron hand’.

Also Read: AG, Dhavan call for judicial statesmanship as SC reserves order in Bhushan’s sentencing

The bench added that if the attack is not dealt with, with a requisite degree of firmness, then it may affect India’s national honour and it’s prestige in the comity of nations.

(The story will be updated once the order is made available on Court’s website)

The article was originally published in The Leaflet.