Supreme Court issues notice to Kamra, Taneja over scandalous tweets against top court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice in the criminal contempt of court cases against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra and cartoonist Rachita Taneja for posting scandalous tweets and cartoons against the top court.

Earlier, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal had given his consent for filing contempt pleas against Kamra and Taneja.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan and comprising Justices R. Subhash Reddy and M.R. Shah said the AG in his letter dated November 12, 2020 had granted consent on the request of the applicant to proceed by way of initiating contempt proceedings against Kunal Kamra.

"Issue notice returnable within six weeks. The respondent-contemnor not to appear in person," said the top court, which issued a similar direction in Taneja's case.

However, the top court dispensed them from personal appearance.

The plea against Kamra was filed by law students Shrirang Katneshwarkar and Nitika Duhan, and advocates Amey Abhay Sirsikar, Abhishek Sharan Raskar and Sattyendra Vinayak Muley.

"The alleged contemnor (Kamra) has the following of 1.7 million people. The scandalous tweets of the alleged contemnor were seen by his followers and many of them retweeted the same," read the plea.

Citing Section 2 (c) (i) of Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, the petitioners argued that this section is explicit and the tweets published by Kamra clearly showed he allegedly committed gross contempt of the apex court.

Granting consent, the AG had said 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.

"But under the Constitution, the 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 unjustifiedly and brazenly will attract punishment under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1972," the top court cited AG's response.

In case of Taneja, the AG had said that he is satisfied that each one of the tweets with the cartoons attached to them is in contempt of the Supreme Court. "Hence I give my consent to initiate proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 with regard to each one of the tweets," the AG had said.