Jurist India Supreme Court initiates criminal contempt proceedings against stand-up comedian, cartoonist over critical tweets

[Dadparvar]

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India decided Friday to proceed with criminal contempt of court cases against Kunal Kamra, a stand-up comedian, and Rachita Taneja, a cartoonist, for their tweets criticizing the court.

Kamra had posted a series of tweets criticizing the Supreme Court for its order granting bail to Arnab Goswami, an Indian news anchor, while Taneja had posted cartoons criticizing several judgments of the court.

According to section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, a private individual can file a contempt of court petition after receiving due consent from the attorney general. Two law students and a lawyer had approached Attorney General KK Venugopal and sought his permission to initiate proceedings against Kamra, and another law student had submitted a plea to initiate proceedings against Taneja.

On November 12, the attorney general gave his consent to initiate proceedings against Kamra and said:

The tweets are not only in bad taste but clearly cross the line between humour and contempt of the court. I find that today people believe that they can boldly and brazenly condemn the Supreme Court of India and its judges by exercising what they believe is their freedom of speech. But under the Constitution, the freedom of speech is subject to the law of contempt and I believe that it is time that people understand that attacking the Supreme Court of India unjustifiably and brazenly will attract punishment.

The attorney general also granted permission on December 1 to initiate proceedings against Taneja and was of the opinion that the tweets were a deliberate attempt to shake confidence in the court and said that “each one of the tweets with the cartoons attached to them is in contempt of the Supreme Court of India.”

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