On Friday, the Supreme Court of India took up the petitions, seeking contempt of court proceedings against ‘comedian’ Kunal Kamra and ‘cartoonist’ Ranchita Taneja.
The Court noted that the Attorney General KK Venugopal had already granted notice to initiate contempt proceedings against Kamra. The apex court, headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, issued a notice to Kamra and Taneja and has granted them the liberty to not appear-in-person.
It must be mentioned that the notice is returnable in 6 weeks. The Supreme Court had earlier decided to take up three contempt petitions against Kunal Kamra for hearing on the 17th of December. However, the court announced that it will pass its order on Friday.
Notice returnable in six weeks. #SupremeCourt #contemptofcourt
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) December 18, 2020
AG KK Venugopal, granting his consent to initiate proceedings against Kamra said the tweets by Kamra, where he referred to the Supreme Court of India as Supreme Joke India, and said that humour has left the SC long ago, “were highly objectionable.”
Kunal Kamra and his contemptuous tweets
Kunal Kamra has been making contemptuous remarks against the Judiciary in his bid to become a liberal ‘hero’ or a ‘martyr’. In one of his tweets, he had shown CJI Arvind Bobde the middle finger and in another, he had painted the Supreme Court in saffron colour to allege that it had become a puppet of the NDA Government.
In the first tweet, Kamra compared the Supreme Court to a Supreme Joke. In the next tweet, he wrote, “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.”
In the third tweet, he compared DY Chandrachud to “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.” In the last tweet, he provoked lawyers to stop using the prefix “Hon’ble” while referring to the Supreme Court or its judges. He said, “Honour has left the building long back.”
Kamra had also posted a morphed image of the Supreme Court building giving it an Orange shade with the BJP flag hoisted in the Supreme Court’s entrance. Mumbai-based lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee said that if the court did not take action based on the derogatory statements made by Kamra, his millions of followers will follow the same path and make reckless allegations when judgment is not in their favour.
