The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to refer the 2009 contempt case against advocate-activist Prashant Bhushan and journalist Tarun Tejpal to a different bench which will deal with some larger questions connected to the freedom of speech and corruption charges made against the judiciary.
A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari heard the 2009 contempt case on Tuesday and senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, who was appearing for Prashant Bhushan, told the bench that there were as many as 10 questions of constitutional importance have been raised by him and they needed to be dealt by a Constitution bench. The Supreme Court referred the case to an “appropriate bench” that will take up the matter on September 10.
The matter is pending for a long time and it will be listed before the appropriate bench on September 10, the bench said in a hearing conducted through video conferencing.
This contempt case is from November 2009, when the Supreme Court had issued contempt notice to Bhushan and Tejpal for allegedly casting aspersions on some sitting and former top court judges in an interview to a news magazine, of which Tejpal was the editor. Bhushan had made allegations against former Chief Justices of India — SH Kapadia and KG Balakrishnan. He also alleged that “half of the 16 erstwhile chief justices of the Supreme Court had been corrupt.”
The Supreme Court had taken suo motu notice of the issue after a complaint was filed by Senior Advocate Harish Salve, the amicus in the case. The contempt petition was held to be maintainable by a three-judge Bench on November 10, 2010 and the hearing has been going on since then.
After the Court decided to hear the case on merits earlier this month, Bhushan had filed his written submissions. He had argued that allegations of corruption made in public interest lie within the purview of free speech under Article 19(1)(a) and such allegations per se do not constitute contempt of court.. He had also said that the fact of corruption is not unheard of and been taken note of by Parliamentary Committees as well as observed by judges in their judgements. He added that an allegation per se cannot be contempt, and finally, truth is a defence to such proceedings.
The top court is also hearing another contempt case against Bhushan in which he has been convicted for his two tweets and has refused to apologize.