The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Twitter and Attorney General KK Venugopal in contempt proceedings that the top court initiated today.
The Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari has initiated a suo motu contempt proceedings against Bhushan for his tweet posted on 29 June against CJI SA Bobde for riding a Harley Davidson bike in Nagpur.
Bhushan had tweeted, “CJI rides a 50 Lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP leader at Raj Bhavan Nagpur, without a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC in Lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access Justice!”
Justice Mishra, according to Bar and Bench website, also took note of Bhushan’s another tweet, posted last month. His tweet had read, “When historians in future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs.”
The court said that the correct party in the case was Twitter Inc of California and not Twitter India. Justice Mishra also highlighted how the questionable tweet was carried by Times of India.