Attorney General KK Venugopal gives consent to Initiate Contempt Proceedings Against Kunal Kamra
(Judicial Quest News Network)
Attorney General KK Venugopal on Thursday gave consent to initiate criminal contempt of court proceedings against standup comedian Kunal Kamra for his tweets insinuating the Supreme Court after it gave bail to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami in an abetment to suicide case.
A Law student Mr. Skand Bajpai from Kanpur had requested AG to give consent to initiate proceedings under Section 15of the Contempt of Courts Act,1971 read with Rule 3 © of the Rules to Regulate proceedings fro Contempt of the Supreme Court of India 1975.
The Attorney General in his letter said that “I have gone through each one of the tweets which you have annexed for consent to proceed by way of criminal contempt against Sh. Kunal Kamra”.
It is further stated that Kunal Kamra has crossed the line between humor and contempt of the Court.
AG has explained in his letter that apart from his tweets there is a picture of the Supreme Court building dressed in saffron colors with flag of the ruling party, namely BJP having replaced the Tricolor AG Venugopal has termed it as a gross insinuation against the entirety of the Supreme Court of India that the Supreme Court of India is not an independent and impartial institution and so too its judges, but on the other hand is a Court of the Ruling party, the BJP, existing for the BJPs benefit.
All this in my opinion constitutes criminal contempt of Court.
The Attorney General who has been consistently refusing to give consent for initiating contempt of Court proceedings against several persons in recent past, has now granted his consent.
Several Advocates and law students had written letters to AG KK Venugopal seeking his consent.
Advocates Mr. Rizwan Siddique (Mumbai)and Shrirang Katneshwarkar (Aurangabad) had sought the consent of the AG KK Venugopal.
Kamra had made series of tweets regarding the Supreme Court in the wake of the Supreme Court granting interim bail to Arnab Goswami.
The Ag has said in his letter that “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. Observes AG KK Venugopal
He further said that under the constitution, 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 under the Contempt of Court Act,1972
[Read the Letter]
