The Supreme Court has requested the help of Attorney General KK Venugopal to investigate the comments against the judges.
New Delhi:
Discussions on television and in the print media about pending matters before the court influence the thinking of the judges and cause great damage to the judicial institution, Attorney General KK Venugopal said today.
The problem has assumed threatening proportions today, he noted.
“When a bail application is filed for a hearing, the television shows conversations between the defendant and someone, and that is detrimental to the defendant and comes up during the bail hearing,” Venugopal told a Supreme Court court. “This is contempt of court.”
Mr. Venugopal today expressed his views before the court of Justices AM Khanwilkar, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, and appeared in his private capacity and not as Attorney General.
The court is considering issues such as the procedure for expressing a complaint against a judge and under what circumstances. He is also investigating the extent to which a sub judice issue can be discussed in the media.
The Supreme Court had requested the assistance of Mr. Venugopal in these matters.
He took them up today in the context of examining whether lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan’s controversial statements in 2009 against three former chief judges of India amounted to contempt. He had approved the comments in an interview with Tehelka magazine.
On August 10, the court refused to accept a “regret” and an explanation from him, saying it will examine whether Bhushan’s remarks amounted to prima facie contempt. Now he will take up the case on November 4.
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