SC reserves Bhushan verdict, AG says let him off with warning

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its decision on quantum of punishment for Prashant Bhushan, convicted of contempt of court, after giving vent to its anguish over the activist-advocate's repeated contemptuous remarks even as attorney general K K Venugopal suggested letting him off with a warning not to repeat such behaviour.
"Judges cannot speak out even if they are humiliated. How long can the Supreme Court and the judges suffer the humiliation heaped regularly? It is not a question of one or two tweets. Look at the number of contemptuous statements made by him and the number of contempt cases initiated against him. Yet he justifies his conduct. What use is a warning to someone who does not realise his mistake?" said a bench of justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari.
Bhushan's counsel, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan said: "If the Supreme Court is to tell him not to repeat it in future, what actually is he supposed to do, not criticise again, not speak out? He has always been critical of the SC. Can he be silenced? This kind of 'don't do it again' reprimand must not be done. He can at best be told to be responsible in his criticism. The SC never means to silence its critics. It is strong criticism which makes SC a strong institution."
“Do not make Bhushan a martyr by punishing him,” Dhavan said. “If the SC punishes him, there will be a new controversy, with one group writing that he is a martyr and the other justifying the SC action. This court can survive only by listening to strong criticism. His criticism was strong but not scurrilous,” he added.
The bench expressed its agony over the propensity of lawyers to play to the gallery and said it had become a habit with lawyers to rush to TV cameras, discuss cases pending adjudication and express their views.
In what appeared to be a subtle reference to Bhushan, the bench said, “It is not for lawyers to attack judges or the Supreme Court in matters in which they have appeared as counsel. We do not mind criticism of our judgments, but do not attribute motive.” It referred to numerous innuendoes thrown at the SC even in the affidavit filed by Bhushan in the contempt case.