The live comedian’s tweet “rude innuendo against the entirety of the Supreme Court,” says the Attorney General.
India’s Attorney General KK Venugopal on Thursday gave his consent to initiate criminal contempt action in the Supreme Court against comedian Kunal Kamra over a series of tweets that “clearly cross the line between humor and contempt of court ”.
“I find that today people believe that they can boldly and unabashedly condemn the Supreme Court of India and its judges exercising what they believe to be their freedom of expression. But according to the Constitution, freedom of speech is subject to the contempt law … I think it is time for people to understand that attacking the Supreme Court in an unjustified and brazen manner will attract punishment under the Contempt Law for the Court, ”Mr. Venugopal observed in his consent letter.
An Aurangabad resident, Shrirang Katneshwarkar, had requested Mr. Venugopal’s permission under the Contempt of Court Act to initiate contempt proceedings against Mr. Kamra for his tweets. The Attorney General has issued letters of consent identical to other separate requests for contempt action against Mr. Kamra.
Kamra’s tweets were based on the Supreme Court order granting provisional bail to Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami on Wednesday.
One of these tweets shows an image of the Supreme Court building draped in saffron with the ruling BJP flag flying above it instead of the Tricolor.
The Attorney General said that this tweet of the image of the Supreme Court building was a “grave insinuation against the entire Supreme Court of India.”
He hinted that “the Supreme Court is not an independent and impartial institution and also its judges, but on the other hand it is a court of the ruling party, the BJP, existing for the benefit of the BJP.”
He said the other tweets were also “highly objectionable” and left it to the Supreme Court to decide whether these tweets would also constitute contempt.
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