Comedian Kunal Kamra is facing fresh a contempt case, this time for a tweet against Chief Justice of India Sharad A Bobde, as Attorney General KK Venugopal on Friday gave his consent to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against him. The letter requesting contempt proceedings against Kamra was written to the Attorney General by Allahabad-based lawyer Anuj Singh on November 18.
In the tweet, Kamra had tweeted a picture of his index and middle finger against an aeroplane window, with the caption: “One of these 2 fingers is for CJI Arvind Bobde... ok let me not confuse you it’s the middle one.”
Responding to the lawyer’s letter, the Attorney General held that the tweet was “grossly vulgar and obnoxious,” and granted consent under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1975 to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against the comedian.
“The depiction of the two fingers, with the legend that he means the middle one, is to deliberately insult the Chief Justice of India which would equally be an insult to the Supreme Court of India itself, which the Chief Justice heads. The said tweet is grossly vulgar and obnoxious, and I have no doubt that it would tend to lower the authority of the Supreme Court of India, as well as undermine the confidence that the litigant public have in the institution of the Supreme Court of India itself,” AG KK Venugopal wrote in response.
Earlier, responding to the earlier tweets for which he faces contempt proceedings as well, Kunal Kamra had said that he does not intend to apologise or retract his tweets. In a statement, he had asked the apex court to hear ‘more salient matters’ in the time that could be spent hearing his contempt case.
Kamra is facing contempt charges for his tweets where he called the Supreme Court the “most supreme joke” in the country, and had posted an edited photo of the Supreme Court, coloured saffron, with a flag of the BJP hoisted on it.