Shourie, Bhushan, N Ram withdraw plea filed in SC challenging validity of criminal contempt

Petitioners’ lawyer tells Supreme Court bench that issues raised in plea are ‘important’ but they would not like to raise them at this stage.

The Supreme Court of India | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday allowed the petitioners — former Union minister Arun Shourie, former chairman of The Hindu Group N. Ram, and advocate Prashant Bhushan — to withdraw their petition challenging the constitutional validity of criminal contempt for “scandalising the court”.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, appearing for the petitioners, told the bench comprising Justice Arun Mishra, B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari that the issues raised in the petition are “important”, but that they would not like to raise these issues at this stage.

While Dhawan sought liberty to file a similar petition against at a later stage, “maybe after two months or so”, the bench allowed the petition to be withdrawn, with the liberty to file it before any other appropriate forum, like the high court, but not the Supreme Court.

The petition had challenged the validity of Section 2(c)(i) of the Contempt of Courts Act 1971, asserting that the provision “is rooted in colonial assumptions and objects, which have no place in legal orders committed to democratic constitutionalism and the maintenance of an open robust public sphere”.

Controversy around listing of the plea

The listing of this petition had garnered national attention last week, when Supreme Court officials were pulled up for “wrongful listing” of the plea.

The officials had listed the petition before a bench comprising Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice K.M. Joseph even though the Justice Mishra-led bench was hearing the two contempt proceedings against Bhushan.

The petition filed by Bhushan, Ram and Shourie has also demanded a stay on these proceedings.

Sources in the SC Registry told ThePrint that this was the reason this petition should also have been listed before the same bench hearing the contempt cases against Bhushan, because a top court bench cannot stay the proceedings pending before another coordinate bench of the court.

The petition was then listed before the same bench hearing the two contempt proceedings against Bhushan — one relating to a 2009 Tehelka interview where he made allegations of corruption against past chief justices of India, and another for two of his tweets criticising the incumbent and past CJIs.

Provision has ‘chilling effect’ on free speech, plea said

The now-withdrawn petition had said the provision “has the effect of threatening dissenters and critics into silence” and “silences legitimate criticism and dissent to the detriment of the health of the democracy”.

Section 2(c)(i) defines criminal contempt as “publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which — scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court”.

The petition had also alleged that the provision violates Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution.

It contended that Section 2(c)(i) violates the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) and creates a “chilling effect” on free speech.

The petition also claimed that the provision is “incurably vague”, leading to “subjective and greatly differing readings and application, which is incapable of being certain and even-handed”. It submitted that the “uncertainty in the manner in which the law applies renders it manifestly arbitrary and violates the right to equal treatment”.