NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court initiated contempt proceedings against Maharashtra assembly officer Vilas Athawale and said the threat administered through the letter was “unprecedented and interfered with the administration of justice”.
A bench of CJI SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian took serious view of the following sentences in the letter to Arnab Goswami: “You were informed that the proceedings of the House are confidential... Despite this, it has been observed that you have presented the proceedings of the House before the Supreme Court on October 8, 2020. No prior permission was taken from the Speaker of the Maharashtra assembly... You have knowingly breached the orders of the Speaker... and your actions amount to breach of confidentiality. This is definitely a serious matter and amounts to contempt.”
Goswami’s counsel Harish Salve said the Maharashtra government was adopting all possible tactics to harass his client and sought protection from arrest by state assembly in the breach of privilege motion initiated against him for using harsh language against the CM and for not prefacing the CM’s name with Hon’ble. He went on to suggest the court could initiate suo motu contempt proceedings against the officer for attempting to interfere with administration of justice.
The bench agreed with Salve, protected Goswami from arrest and sought assistance of attorney general KK Venugopal. It said, “Statements made by Athawale are unprecedented and tend to interfere in the course of administration of justice. The intention of Athawale seems to be to intimidate the petitioner because the petitioner approached this court and to threaten him with a penalty for seeking legal remedy.”
The SC said the assembly secretary “would have been well advised to understand that the right to approach the SC under Article 32 of the Constitution is itself a fundamental right”. The bench said, “There is no doubt that if a citizen of India is deterred from approaching this court in exercise of his right under Article 32 of the Constitution, it would amount to a serious and direct interference in the administration of justice.” It noted the non-appearance of counsel on behalf of Maharashtra assembly despite notice being served. During the hearing, the bench sought out senior advocate AM Singhvi, who was appearing for the Maharashtra government. Singhvi, however, steered clear of the contempt issue and expressed his “inability to explain or justify the contents of the aforesaid letter.”
The bench asked Athawale to respond by November 23 to its notice asking why contempt proceedings be not initiated against him under the summary contempt powers conferred upon SC through Article 129, which was resorted to by the SC to punish advocate Prashant Bhushan. The court also appointed senior advocate Arvind Datar as amicus curiae.
The bench made caustic observations against Athawale. “We have serious questions about the intention of this officer... Even the privileges committee (of assembly) cannot tell a person not to approach SC. How could this officer say this? We have never seen such a letter or such attitude from an officer of the assembly,” it said.