Attorney General KK Venugopal granted consent for initiation of contempt proceedings against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra for his tweets criticizing the Supreme Court.
KK Venugopal in his letter to one of the applicants who had sought the consent of the top law officer for initiation of contempt proceedings against Kunal Kamra said, "I am in receipt of your request for consent to initiate proceedings by way of criminal contempt against Kunal Kamra. I have gone through each one of the tweets which you have annexed for consent to proceed by way of criminal contempt against Kunal Kamra."
“The tweets which I am extracting below are not only in bad taste but clearly cross the line between humor and contempt of the court,” said KK Venugopal in the letter
In one of the letters seeking Attorney General's consent for initiation of contempt proceedings against Kamra, three lawyers have claimed that Kunal Karma had allegedly attempted to lower the authority of the Supreme Court of India through his tweets after the apex court had granted interim bail to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.
In a series of tweets, Kamra had said, "The Supreme Court of this country is the most Supreme joke of this country..." He added, "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. *Justice*," he further tweeted.
"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...," he added.
"Apart from this, is a picture of the Supreme Court building dressed in saffron colors with a flag of the ruling political party, namely the BJP has replaced the Tricolor, This is a gross insinuation against the entirety of the Supreme Court of India that the Supreme Court of India is not an independent and impartial institution and so too its judges, but on the other hand is a Court of the ruling party, the BJP existing for the BJP's benefit. All this, in my opinion, constitutes criminal contempt of Court," was further added in the letter
