The SG's denial came within days of Attorney General K K Venugopal declining the go-ahead saying that Bhasker's comment appeared to be her "perception" about the issue.After Attorney General K K Venugopal, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta too turned down on Wednesday a request seeking permission to initiate contempt of court proceedings against actress Swara Bhasker for allegedly making “derogatory and scandalous” statements against the Supreme Court.
In a letter to Advocate Anuj Saxena, who had submitted the request on behalf of his client Usha Shetty, the Solicitor General pointed out that his letter said “the request to initiate contempt was forwarded to the Hon’ble Attorney General of India…” who “on 21.08.2020 has declined to provide his consent…”.
“Considering the fact that the Ld Attorney General for India has already declined to grant his consent in the present matter for reasons detailed in the letter dated 21.08.2020, the present request made to me is misconceived,” the Solicitor General said.
In his request, Saxena had cited in two paragraphs details of Bhasker’s alleged remarks during a panel discussion on February 1, 2020 and contended that her statements were “derogatory and scandalous”.
The remarks cited in the first paragraph related to the Ayodhya judgment and those in the second mentioned the government, police, courts and the Constitution.
In his letter to Saxena on August 21, the Attorney General said, “The statement in the first part appears to me a factual one and is a perception of a speaker. The comment refers to the Judgment of Supreme Court and is not an attack on the institution. This does not offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalise or lower the authority of the Supreme Court.”
Venugopal added, “The second statement is a vague statement not related to any particular Court and something which is so general that no one would take any serious note of this statement… I do not think that this is a case where the offence of scandalising of Court or lowering the authority of the Court would arise.”
Under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1071, the consent of either the Attorney General or the Solicitor General is necessary to initiate contempt proceedings against a person.