AG’s Consent Sought to Initiate Contempt of Court Against TMC MP Derek O’ Brien for Tweets Against Justice Kaushik Chanda
(Judicial Quest News Network)
A Kolkata based lawyer has written a letter to West Bengal Advocate General Kishore Datta seeking his consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Rajay Sabha MP and All India Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien for his tweets against Justice Kaushik Chanda of the Calcutta High Court.
The letter seeking AG’s consent was sent by Advocate Debapriya Samanta who practices before Calcutta High Court.
As per Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, the consent of Advocate General is required before the High Court can hear a criminal contempt petition filed by a private individual.
The Advocate in his letter has referred two tweets published by Derek O’Brien on July 18 wherein he had questioned the allocation of Chief Minister’s Mamta Banerjee’s election case of Justice Kausik Chanda.
In one of his tweets, O’Biren had tweeted pictures of Justice Chanda participating in Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) events when he was a lawyer.
Another tweet put out details of certain cases in which Justice Chanda had appeared as a lawyer for the BJP.
The letter further states that both these Tweets are published which are contemptuous in nature in that they are “circulated to bring a court into contempt or to lower its authority”. By these Tweets Mr. Brien seeks to create an impression in the minds of the public at large that Mr. Justice Chanda and the court are prejudiced and that Justice Chanda is not acting fairly and that he would only act to protect the interest of the Bhartiya Janata Party.
The letter also pointed out that Mr. Brien is no ordinary individual he is a member of Parliament as well as a celebrity who enjoys a massive following on various social media platform.
His words have the potential to influence the minds of the public at large on account of the large public at large on account of the account of the large public audience and authority that is available to him and thus he has the responsibility to be more circumspect with his words and actions.
Therefore, the Advocate Samantha, sought AG’s consent to initiate contempt of court proceeding against Derek O’Brien.
On Thursday, Kolkata resident had written a letter to AG Datta seeking his consent to initiate contempt of court proceeding against West Bengal Bar Council Chairperson, Ashok Kumar Deb.
“Mr. Brien makes the allegations without any proof and are based on sunrises and assumptions about Mr. Justice Chanda’s character and moral uprightness with a political party prior to his elevation to the Bench.
The contents of these tweets hence only seeks to bring the council and the Judge into contempt and lower its authority and hence falls within the scope of section 2 (c)(1) of the contempt of Courts Act,1971 the letter stated.
