New Delhi: Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri unconditionally apologised to the Delhi High Court Tuesday – through an affidavit — for his remarks against former Delhi high court judge and current chief justice of Orissa High Court, Justice S. Muralidhar, who freed Bhima Koregan accused Gautam Navlakha from house arrest in 2018.
The bench comprising Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwan Singh, however, insisted that Agnihotri remain personally present for the next hearing on 16 March.
The bench remarked, “We are asking him (Agnihotri) to remain present because he is the contemnor. Does he have any difficulty if he has to express remorse in person? The remorse cannot always be expressed by way of an affidavit.”
On 1 October 2018, a bench headed by Justice Muralidhar had set Navlakha free from house arrest, and quashed a local court order granting transit remand to the Maharashtra Police to transfer him to Pune in connection with Bhima Koregaon violence case.
Soon after the court order, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue, co-convenor of Swadeshi Jagran Manch and part-time Reserve Bank of India board member, S. Gurumurthy, had tweeted an article titled: “Why has Delhi High Court Justice Muralidhar’s relationship with Gautam Navlakha not been disclosed?”
The article was published in a blog named Drishtikone. Agnihotri then alleged bias on the part of Justice Muralidhar in a tweet. Consulting editor of the right-wing magazine Swarajya, Anand Ranganathan, also tweeted against the order.
‘Attempt to scandalise the court’
Following a letter from advocate Rajshekhar Rao, the court initiated contempt proceedings against Agnihotri, Ranganathan, Gurumurthy, the Swarajya magazine and others in 2018.
Rao submitted that the content of the article and tweets was an attempt to scandalise the court, and obstruct the judicial process. A bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Yogesh Khanna opined in October 2018, “We have perused the documents placed in the file and are satisfied that there exists a prima facie case for issuance of notice for criminal contempt of Court to the author of the article/makers of the statements and those who are responsible for making/uploading the video leveling scandalous allegations against a sitting Judge of this Court.”
The author of the offending article, Desh Kapoor, tendered an unconditional apology in 2019, and agreed to delete the blog, after which contempt proceedings were withdrawn against him.
On 19 September, 2022, the court decided to proceed against Agnihotri, Ranganathan and the magazine, among others, ex-parte – that is, without hearing them. This was after nobody appeared on behalf of some of the respondents despite getting a notice.
Agnihotri then tendered the apology, and also filed an application seeking permission to participate in the proceedings. In his affidavit, he submitted that he had deleted his tweets against the judge.
However, when the matter came up for hearing, amicus curiae Arvind Nigam told the court that this submission could be wrong because as per Twitter’s affidavit, it could have been the social media platform that deleted Agnihotri’s tweets, not the filmmaker himself.
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