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Re: Vijay Kurle & Ors. (Suo Motu Contempt Petition)

Contempt Petition (Criminal) · 2020 INSC 373Decided 27 Apr 2020
Contempt Petition (Criminal) No. 2 of 2019
Justice Deepak Gupta · Justice Aniruddha Bose

Background

Advocate Mathews Nedumpara was earlier convicted of contempt of the Supreme Court in a separate proceeding. Shortly before the Court was to decide his sentence, two complaints, one by Vijay Kurle (State President, Maharashtra and Goa unit of the Indian Bar Association) and one by Rashid Khan Pathan (National Secretary, Human Rights Security Council), were sent to the President of India and the Chief Justice of India, alleging bias and misconduct by two Judges of the Bench that had convicted Nedumpara, including an allegation that one Judge was biased. These lengthy complaints (over 250 pages combined) were also circulated on social media. The Supreme Court took suo motu notice and initiated contempt proceedings against Kurle, Pathan, Nilesh Ojha (President of the Indian Bar Association) and Nedumpara himself (who was later discharged after denying any role).

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that the allegations made in both complaints were scurrilous and scandalous, aimed at browbeating the Bench into not imposing sentence on Nedumpara, and found no genuine evidentiary basis for the "truth" defence raised by the contemnors (such as claims that a Judge was biased or had misread precedent): on examining the record, the Court found only bare assertions with no supporting material. It found that Kurle and Pathan had coordinated with each other (each referencing the other's complaint) and that Ojha, as President of the Indian Bar Association under whose umbrella Kurle operated, had never publicly disassociated himself from the complaint and was found to have acted in connivance with the other two. The Court accordingly held all three, Vijay Kurle, Rashid Khan Pathan and Nilesh Ojha, guilty of criminal contempt of court, while separately placing on record its appreciation for amicus curiae Siddharth Luthra and rejecting baseless allegations the contemnors had made against him. The question of sentence for the three found guilty was explicitly deferred to a later date (01.05.2020) for a separate hearing, which is standard practice for contempt matters: guilt and sentence are decided in two stages, in the same way a criminal conviction and sentencing hearing are often bifurcated.

Lesson Learnt

Lawyers and bar-body officeholders can be held in criminal contempt for sending or circulating scandalous, unsubstantiated allegations against judges, particularly when timed to influence a pending judicial decision, and merely claiming the allegations are "true" is not a defense unless real evidence is produced to back it up.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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