Supreme Court holds Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt over tweets against judiciary

Supreme Court of India

The Supreme Court of India (SC) on August 14 held senior advocate Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt of court in the suo moto contempt case against him over his tweets about the Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde and the apex court.

In his judgement, Justice BR Gavai observed that Bhushan had committed "serious contempt of the Court". The bench will hear arguments on the quantum of sentence on August 20.

In July, the top court had initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against the activist-lawyer for his alleged derogatory tweets against the judiciary. The apex court has also initiated contempt proceedings against Twitter India, the social media platform on which Bhushan had posted the comments.

The bench had prima facie observed that Bhushan's tweets "have brought disrepute to the administration of justice and are capable of undermining the dignity and authority of the Supreme Court in general and the office of the Chief Justice of India in particular, in the eyes of general public".

On August 5, the bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, Gavai and Krishna Murari had reserved judgement in the case after hearing Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, who represented Bhushan.

According to Live Law, Dave had submitted that Bhushan was airing only bona fide criticism against the judiciary without any malice.