Prashant Bhushan, an activist lawyer who was charged for making two inappropriate and derogatory tweets against the Chief Justice of India (CJI) S.A. Bobde and the Supreme Court (SC,) accepted the SC’s verdict.
On the 31st of August, the Top Court directed Lawyer Prashant Bhushan to pay Re. 1 to the Supreme Court as a fine.
After the judgement, Prashant Bhushan said, “I gratefully accept (the) Supreme Court verdict.”
Mr. Bhushan took to his Twitter handle and posted a picture of him paying the fine amount of Rs.1. He captioned the image, “My lawyer & senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted.”
In July, Mr. Prashant tweeted about the Supreme Court and questioned the functioning of the Apex Court.
In the second tweet, he criticised CJI S.A.Bobde and said, “The CJI rides a Rs. 50 lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!”
Soon after the derogatory comments, on the 9th of July, a case was filed against Prashant Bhushan.
First hearing regarding the case was held on the 22nd of July.
On the 14th of August, Prashant Bhushan was found guilty of criminal contempt of court over his tweets against the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of India SA Bobde.
On the 31st of August, during a hearing regarding the case, the Apex Court imposed a fine of Re 1 in the contempt case.
The matter was reviewed by a three judge bench comprising B.R. Gavai, Arun Mishra and Krishna Murari. The bench said, if Mr. Bhushan fails to deposit the amount by the 15th of September, he would be imprisoned for three months. In addition he would also be barred from law practice for three years.
Stay tuned for further updates.
