SC reserves order in contempt case against Bhushan

NEWDELHI:The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its order on a 2009 contempt petition against lawyer Prashant Bhushan after holding in-camera proceedings, at the end of which Bhushan said his remarks alleging former chief justices of India were corrupt did not refer to financial wrongdoing but lack of propriety.

A bench of justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari said, “In case we do not accept the explanation/apology, we will hear the matter. We reserve the order.” Since the matter was heard in-camera the parties refused to comment.

Contempt proceedings in the present case were initiated by the Supreme Court in 2009 on a petition moved by senior advocate Harish Salve over Bhushan’s comment to Tehelka magazine on September 5, 2009. The court initiated contempt action against Tehelka’s former editor Tarun Tejpal too, who was present in the hearing on Tuesday.

Senior advocates Rajiv Dhavan

and Kapil Sibal represented Bhushan and Tejpal while Salve too was present during the hearing held through videoconferencing. Before commencing the in-camera proceedings, the bench told Dhavan, “Please suggest a way out to avoid this rigmarole. We don’t want to curtail freedom of speech but we also want to save the grace of this institution which belongs to you as well. I want to know from you as an amicus so that we can avoid this conflict,” the bench said.

The judges later spoke individually with Dhavan, Sibal and Salve through a video call and concluded arguments. Later, the bench spoke again to the lawyers. It said it was of the view that calling judges corrupt per se was contempt. Sibal tendered an apology from Tejpal while Bhushan said, “In my interview to Tehelka I used the word corruption in a wide sense meaning lack of propriety. I did not mean only financial corruption or deriving any pecuniary advantage. If what I have said caused hurt to any of them or to their families in any way, I regret the same.”