The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on the quantum of sentence in the contempt case against lawyer Prashant Bhushan. The top court had on 14 August held him guilty of contempt for his two tweets against the judiciary.
During the hearing, the Attorney General KK Venugopal suggested that Bhushan be given one more chance to “express regret”. The court should warn him and take compassionate view, he further told the bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.
The court, however, said Bhushan had not apologised and even made disparaging remarks in the affidavit filed in his defence, according to The Indian Express. The bench gave Bhushan 30 minutes to “think over” his stand of not expressing regret over his tweets.
When the hearing began again, Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, representing Bhushan, said that the order of 20 August giving time to Bhushan to apologise “gives the impression that Bhushan is being coerced to give an apology”.
He added that an apology cannot be made to escape the clutches of law, LiveLaw reported. “An apology has to be sincere.”
Bhushan had refused to offer an apology to the court on Monday for his two tweets against the judiciary and said that what he expressed represented his bona fide belief which he continued to hold. An apology for expression of beliefs, conditional or unconditional, would be insincere, he said, according to PTI.
In the last hearing on 20 August, the apex court had granted Bhushan time to “reconsider his statement” after he refused to apologise. The court had also rejected Bhushan’s submissions that the arguments on quantum of sentence in the contempt proceedings be heard by another top court bench.
In a statement during the 20 August hearing, Bhushan had said that “open criticism of any institution is necessary in any democracy to safeguard the constitutional order.”
“My tweets were nothing but a small attempt to discharge what I considered to be my highest duty at this juncture in the history of our republic,” he had added.
After the 14 August order, senior advocate Sanjay Hegde toldHuffPost India’s Akshay Deshmane that the judgment will discourage lawyers from being outspoken and this cannot lead to a strong court.
Senior Supreme Court advocate Indira Jaising told HuffPost India’s Betwa Sharma that the top court’s verdict holding lawyer Bhushan in contempt of court was “bad news for free speech”.
(With PTI inputs)