Can't hang Sword of Damocles over Gurumurthy for 5 years: Delhi High Court in contempt case for tweet on Justice S Muralidhar
The Delhi High Court on Thursday remarked that a quietus should be put to the ongoing criminal contempt proceedings against RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy for his tweet against former Delhi High Court judge and current Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, Justice S Muralidhar.
A Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Gaurang Kanth noted that the case has been going on for five years and that Gurumurthy has appeared in person and expressed remorse.
“This contempt case is pending since 2018…Our view is that the gentleman has appeared before the Court, he has expressed his remorse. Sometimes, it is important to put quietus to all this. We don’t know why DHCBA (Delhi High Court Bar Association) is so keen…The bench (of Justice Muralidhar) had itself heard the matter in relation to whether there was any contempt and said that they would not...You can’t have the sword of Damocles hanging over the person for five years,” the Bench remarked.
The Court was informed today that the senior counsel representing the DHCBA was not available. As such, a request was made for the matter to be heard next week. While the Court was initially not inclined to adjourn the case, it subsequently listed the matter for July 13.
It also asked the counsel present to obtain instructions from the DHCBA Secretary on whether it still wanted to prosecute the petition.
“There are so many other things that we need to be persuaded on…We need to be persuaded that the conduct was willful,” Justice Mridul remarked.
He further noted that this was not a suo motu petition and that the case had been filed by a third party (DHCBA) with the permission of the standing counsel.
Thus, the DHCBA will have to argue that a criminal contempt petition can be filed with the consent of the standing counsel, the Court pointed out.
The case relates to a speculative tweet posted by Gurumurthy, where he asked if Justice Muralidhar had been a junior to former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram.
The tweet was posted after a bench led by Justice Muralidhar restrained the Enforcement Directorate from taking any coercive action against P Chidambaram's son, Karti Chidambaram.
A bench led by Justice Muralidhar took cognisance of the tweet and clarified that he has never worked as a junior to Chidambaram.
The Court further said that it was for the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta (as he then was) and the Bar to consider whether such tweets called for action in accordance with the law.
This prompted the DHCBA to file a criminal contempt petition against Gurumurthy.
