Highlights:
- Prashant Bhushan’s contempt case gets worse for him
- Supreme Court declines Prashant Bhushan’s regret and explanation
- The statement was made back in 2009 when he called Chief Justices corrupt.
The Supreme Court of India, today, declined to accept the explanation and regret by the advocate-activist Prashant Bhushan in the case of contempt over his statement made in 2009 interview where he called Chief Justices corrupt.
The top court said that it will have to check if Prashant Bhushan’s comments made on corruption amounted to contempt of court or not.
On the coming Monday, the court will hear the case again.
The Supreme Court of India said, “We need to check whether statements made regarding corruption amounts to contempt of court. Thus we need to hear the matter,”.
Senior Advocate and former Law Minister Shanthi Bhushan who is Prashant Bhushan’s father requested the Supreme Court that they should list the case for when the physical hearing will be resumed after the end of lockdown imposed to contain the Coronavirus pandemic.
However, the Supreme Court did not agree to the request.
Last week, the court reserved the order.
The contempt of court case involves the statements made by Prashant Bhushan during an interview back in 2009 with Tehelka Magazine in which the advocate said half of the 16 Chief Justices of India were corrupt.
The Supreme Court of India has been hearing another contempt petition against Prashant Bhushan which was against for comments against the Chief Justice of India S A Bobde where he said that “There is a line between free speech and contempt… There is freedom of speech and expression and then contempt”.
This second case refers to the remarks that advocate Prashant Bhushan made via Twitter where his post went viral showing images of Chief Justice of India, S A Bobde’s trying out a superbike.
The tweet was later withheld by the US based microblogging website giant, Twitter.
On the hearing which took place on Tuesday, Prashant Bhushan made stetements and expressed regret. He said, “What I said caused hurt to any of them (the Chief Justices of India) or to their families in any way, I regret.”
The word “corruption” was used in “wide sense meaning lack of propriety”, he said.
Prashant Bhushan also said that “I did not mean only financial corruption or deriving any pecuniary advantage.”
The other person who has been accused of contempt, a senior journalist named Tarun Tejpal, apologised for publishing the statement.
