 Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 16: Already in detention under Public Safety Act (PSA) former chief minister and head of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mehbooba Mufti has challenged the whole judicial system of the country. By challenging the judicial system, Mehbooba Mufti has committed Contempt of Court because she has termed Prashant Bhushan’s comment as Chief Justice of India as “truth”.
“A defunct justice system would rather punish @pbhushan1for stating the truth but doesnt exhibit any sense of urgency & deliberately delays petitions challenging illegal abrogation of Article 370 & unlawful detention of people jailed since a year”, she tweeted.
On Friday, a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra found two tweets by lawyer Prashant Bhushan amounting to “serious contempt of court”.
One of his tweets was about the role of the last four Chief Justices of India, and the other about the current CJI riding an expensive motorcycle while the court was in “lockdown”. While Bhushan later expressed some regret, the Bench on Friday held that the latter’s tweet was not against the CJI in his individual capacity but as the head of the judiciary.
Mehbooba’s tweet in which she has termed Bhushan’s comment as “truth” - which is an example of ‘contempt of court’.
The Bench took exception to the “lockdown” remark and said that from March 23 to August 4, its various Benches had 879 sittings and heard 12,748 matters. It noted that Bhushan himself not only appeared as a lawyer during this period but also challenged the FIR against him. The court refused to accept his tweet as written out of anguish.
As to the other tweet, the court held it tends to give an impression that the highest constitutional court of the country has in the last six years played a vital role in the destruction of Indian democracy. “There is no doubt, that the tweet tends to shake the public confidence in the institution of judiciary… the said tweet undermines the dignity and authority of the institution of the Supreme Court of India and the CJI and directly affronts the majesty of law,” the Bench said. |
