Bombay based lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee has sought Attorney General KK Venugopal’ s permission to initiate contempt of court proceedings against stand-up comic artist Kunal Kamra for his tweets criticising the Supreme Court.
Siddiquee, in his letter to AG has stated that Kamra’s tweets on a judgment passed by the Supreme Court amounts to a “manifest attempt to lower the authority of the Supreme Court of India.”
Kamra on his tweets have passed unsavoury comments on the Justice DY Chandrachud and circulated morphed image of the Supreme Court premises. The background of the tweets by Kunal Kamra was the Supreme Court order passed on Wednesday by a Bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud granting bail to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief, Arnab Goswami.
The four tweets by Kamra which forms the basis of Siddiquee’s request are as follows:
- The Supreme Court of this country is the most Supreme joke of this country…
2 .The pace at which the Supreme Court operates in matters of “National Interests” it’s time we replace Mahatma Gandhi’s photo with Harish Salve’s photo…
- DY Chandrachud is a flight attendant serving champagne to first class passengers after they’re fast tracked through, while commoners don’t know if they’ll ever be boarded or seated, let alone served.
- All lawyers with a spine must stop the use of the prefix “Hon’ble” while referring to the Supreme Court or its judges. Honour has left the building long back…
Siddiquee has also highlighted that Kamra had posted a picture which was a morphed image of Supreme Court building giving it an Orange shade and depicting a BJP flag hoisted in the foyer of the Supreme Court.
If such unruly and salacious statements are allowed to go unchecked then users like Kamra who has millions of followers will too follow the same path and make reckless allegations when a judgment is not in their favour, the letter states.
“Greatest strength of the judiciary is the faith of the people in it, a belief that should not allowed to erode because of a calculated and well-timed propaganda of a few,”