The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to noted advocate Prashant Bhushan in suo motu contempt proceedings against him for his two tweets regarding the institution of the Supreme Court and the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI). A three-judge bench of Justices Arun Mihsra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari said it was of prima facie view that the statements made by Bhushan on Twitter by Bhushan had brought disrepute to the administration of justice and could undermine, in the eyes of the public, the dignity and authority of the Supreme Court in general and the CJI's office in particular. The court also issued notice to Attorney General for India. The court's order passed today made reference to the following two tweets made by Bhushan-A) "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!"B) "When historians in future look back at the last 6 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." The bench also said that the petition filed by one Mehek Maheshwari seeking contempt action against Bhushan for his tweet on CJI was placed before it on the administrative side whether it should be listed for hearing or not as the petitioner had not obtained the permission of the Attorney General for India before filing the contempt petition. After examining the matter on the administrative side, the court said, it directed the matter to be listed before the Court to pass appropriate orders. During the hearing, Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya who appeared for Twitter Inc. expressed willingness to disable the tweets under question if the court ordered it to do so. The court directed Twitter Inc. to file its reply. The matter has been listed for further hearing on August 5. Read Order here:[pdfviewer]http://theleaflet.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Prashant-Bhushan.pdf[/pdfviewer]
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