Prashant Bhushan Seeks Recall Of Contempt Notices

Legal Insiders Feb 26, 2019 Lawstreet News Network 0 Shares

Advocate Prashant Bhushan on February 25, 2019, sought the recall of contempt notices issued against him by a Supreme Court Bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Navin Sinha on petitions filed by Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and the Central government.

Also Read - Decoding Prashant Bhushan's Controversial Tweets

The Supreme Court on February 6, 2019, agreed to consider the larger issue of advocates making comments on a sub-judice matter and issued notice to Mr. Bhushan on contempt petitions filed for his tweets stating that the government, through Attorney General, had misled the court by submitting that the appointment of M. Nageshwar Rao as interim CBI Director had the approval of High Powered Selection Committee.

In his application, filed through Advocate Kamini Jaiswal, Mr. Bhushan stated that the Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra had no jurisdiction to entertain the contempt petitions. The petitions were mentioned before the Bench by completely “bypassing” the Chief Justice of India, who is the master of the roster. It was also stated that the consent of CJI was also not taken.

Also Read - Prashant Bhushan moves SC, seeks hearing on his plea before review petitions are considered.

The application referred to a Constitution Bench decision in the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India, which had upheld the CJI’s undisputed role as the ‘master of roster’ with exclusive powers to take up cases and allocate them to Benches in the apex court. The Constitution Bench of which Justice Arun Mishra was also a member had ruled that no judge in the Supreme Court could allocate cases to themselves.

Further, it was also argued that as per the roaster arrangement only the benches headed by CJI, Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice U.U. Lalit have the jurisdiction for criminal contempt.

Besides that, Mr. Bhushan also mentioned in his application that the criminal contempt petitions are stand-alone matters and could not have been tagged with the Nageshwar Rao PIL.

Decoding Prashant Bhushan's Controversial Tweets

Legal Insiders Jan 05, 2021 Mriganc Mishra Intern Aquilas Legal Solutio ( Editor: Ekta Joshi ) 9 Shares

Prasant Bhushan had posted two tweets, one on the Supreme Court on June 27, 2020 and the second one on CJI Bobde on June 29, 2020. He was served notice by the apex court on July 22, 2020.The top court had on August 5, 2020 reserved its verdict in the matter after Bhushan defended his two alleged contemptuous tweets saying they were against the judges regarding their conduct in their personal capacity and they did not obstruct administration of justice. The first tweet said: “When...

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Prashant Bhushan moves SC, seeks hearing on his plea before review petitions are considered.

Legal Insiders Dec 18, 2020 Dev Kumar Patel ( Editor: Ekta Joshi ) 9 Shares

In his petition seeking review of the order holding him guilty for contempt of court for his two derogatory tweets against the judiciary, Bhushan has contended that it "suffers from multiple errors apparent on the face of the record of both law and of fact".Activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan on 14th December 2020 moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction that his two pleas, in which he has sought review of the orders convicting and sentencing him for contempt of court for his tweets against the...

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