New Delhi: Prashant Bhushan paid the Re 1 fine imposed by the Supreme Court on Monday as a result of his conviction and sentence in the suo motu contempt case. He reiterated to the media his opinion that the payment of the fine does not mean that he admits his guilt as a contemnor.
In his petition for review filed Monday, Bhushan contends that the contempt case against him should not have been heard by a court that included Judge Arun Mishra (now retired). He has recalled some episodes that, he said, ‘strengthen’ Judge Mishra’s bias against him.
Examples of bias
First, on December 16, 2016, when Judge Mishra sat down with Judge JS Khehar to hear the request for an investigation into the Sahara Diaries case, Bhushan asked Judge Khehar to postpone the matter because the accusations concerned to the bribery of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was the Prime Minister of Gujarat. As the prime minister was expected to approve the appointment of Judge Khehar as India’s next presiding judge after the then CJI stepped down on January 3, 2017, Bhushan said there would be a conflict of interest at that time in his hearing. of the case. Judge Mishra then orally alleged that this very statement amounted to contempt of court.
Second, Bhushan has claimed that after Judge Mishra heard and dismissed the request made by Common Cause seeking a court-supervised investigation into the Sahara payment case on January 11, 2017, he tweeted the fact that the then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, attended the reception of Judge Arun Mishra’s nephew, as reported in local newspapers. The tweet also included a photo of Chouhan greeting the newlywed couple at Judge Mishra’s residence. As Chouhan was one of the alleged recipients of a 10 million rupee bribe from the Sahara group, Bhushan’s inference was that Judge Mishra held a grudge against him for exposing this “unholy nexus.”
Third, Bhushan recalled the proceedings in the Supreme Court on November 10, 2017, when a court of five judges, including Judge Arun Mishra, was hearing a petition from the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR) seeking a Court-supervised investigation into a CBI First Information Report (FIR) regarding the alleged planning and preparation to obtain favorable orders in the Prasad Medical Trust case. When Bhushan requested the recusal of the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra from hearing the case, as he had heard the Prasad Medical Trust case previously, Judge Mishra again observed that such an allegation amounted to contempt of court.
On November 13, 2017, when Judges RK Agarwal, AM Khanwilkar and Mishra heard Kamini Jaiswal’s petition on the same matter, Bhushan asked Judge Khanwilkar to recuse himself from the hearing of the case because he was also part of the court along with the president of the court Dipak Misra, who handled the case of the medical school. The court’s ruling in this case qualified Bhushan’s request in contempt of court and imposed a fine of Rs 25 lakh on the CJAR, of which Bhushan is the coordinator.
Prashant Bhushan (left), Justice Arun Mishra (right) and, in the background, the Supreme Court of India. Photos: PTI
In Indian Attorney General v Prashant Bhushan, Bhushan’s tweet about the attorney general who allegedly misled the Supreme Court about the High Level Selection Committee meeting to select the acting head of the IWC generated controversy. The attorney general, KK Venugopal, denied the suggestion and presented the minutes of the meeting to show that the three-member committee had indeed agreed to appoint M. Nageswara Rao as interim director, after the then director had to resign, following the government decision to replace him. Bhushan expressed regret over the tweet and the attorney general requested the closing of the contempt petition against him. But Judge Mishra kept the process alive by insisting on setting guidelines on whether lawyers can tweet about pending cases.
In this case, Bhushan raised the question of the advisability of filing a contempt petition in the garb of an Interlocutory Request in a pending matter, and subsequently it was mentioned and listed as the contempt petitions 1 and 2 of 2019 in court. . of Judges Arun Mishra and Navin Sinha on February 6, 2019. This was one of the few pending cases that Judge Mishra did not conclude with the hearing.
In the same case, Judge Mishra asked Bhushan to present an unconditional apology for moving the recusal request, which Bhushan had rejected. Judge Mishra on March 7, 2019 made it clear that there was no reason for the disqualification (without reading Bhushan’s request for disqualification) and that he would deal with it. He also stated that the effect of filing the request for disqualification would be considered at the next hearing. According to Bhushan, the way in which Judge Mishra insisted on hearing the contempt petition despite the fact that the attorney general withdrew his guilty plea, and his objection to filing the request for disqualification itself, generated a serious apprehension of bias. the judge against you.
Bhushan noted that his letter to the CJI on July 26, 2019 brought these issues to his attention, and also explained why he was unable to submit a request for disqualification to Judge Mishra himself, as he would have invited a similar response as the request in yes it was contempt.
Bhushan has claimed that the CJI’s lack of response to his letter is reason to re-hear the entire contempt process in a new court, as Judge Mishra has retired.
Defects in the judgment of August 14
According to Bhushan, the conclusion in paragraph 18 of the August 14 contempt judgment that “the power of this court to initiate contempt is not limited in any way by the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act 1971” it is an apparent error of law, a legitimate reason for revision.
Bhushan has emphasized that a criminal contempt process, which begins suo motu, it must apply all the procedural guarantees of the 1971 Law and the 1975 Rules (framed to enforce the Law) since the court is both the aggrieved party and the judge acting in its own case.
Bhushan has also questioned the legal basis for the Arun Mishra court’s claim that he had followed the procedure prescribed in the judgment of PNDuda against P. Shiv Shankar, while taking suo motu notice of contempt, without the consent of the AG. Bhushan has clarified that in the PNDuda against P. Shiv Shankar Judgment, which was handed down by two Judges, there was a disagreement between them on the maintainability of the petition without the permission of the Attorney General, and the procedure to follow in such cases. Judge Ranganathan, in his separate opinion, found that Duda’s petition could not be upheld as a suo motu petition or otherwise.
Therefore, Bhushan has alleged his complaint that he was not provided with the copy of the petition, on the basis of which the court had initiated suo motu proceedings against him. The petition, filed by Mahek Maheswari, sought exemption from submitting prior permission from the Attorney General. Bhushan, therefore, holds that to regard such a request as suo motu The request is another glaring mistake.
Supreme Court. Photo: PTI
Bhushan has maintained that the notification sent to him for his second tweet on June 27 (in which he said that future historians will note the role played by the last four CJIs in the ‘destruction of democracy’ in the country) was not the result of a procedure on the administrative side, as ordered by Judge Ranganathan’s judgment in the PNDuda case. The bank could not have taken suo motu notice of the second tweet directly on the judicial side, without the registry notifying it on the administrative side. As there is no administrative order placing him on the judicial side, the entire process regarding Bhushan’s second tweet, including the August 14 ruling, is an apparent error on the record, Bhushan notes with considerable force.
Bhushan has also argued that the court’s failure to listen to the attorney general, despite his presence at the August 5 hearing, prior to issuing the conviction on August 14, was a serious flaw, as the Attorney General is the “only independent mind that can shed light on whether there is contempt, with the court being the aggrieved party as well as the adjudicator.” As a result, the conclusion in paragraph 18 of the August 14 judgment that “it is equally well resolved that once the court becomes aware, the matter is purely between the court and the contemnor” is an apparent error of law to first glance. , Maintains Bhushan.
Bhushan has argued that more evidence needs to be presented to the court regarding the comparative number of cases that the Supreme Court hears and decides during normal pre-COVID-19 operation and its operation during lockdown mode. The fact that the court does not consider his guilty plea is a cause of grave injury to him, he said.
Bhushan’s first tweet deplored the fact that the court’s limited functioning due to COVID-19 had resulted in the denial of citizens’ right to access justice. The court had argued that this was in fact incorrect, but did not provide comparative data on the number of cases heard and decided before and after the shutdown began.
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