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- Published: August 31, 2020 14:56
New Delhi: The Supreme Court slapped Re 1 fine on senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan in connection with a suo motu criminal contempt of court case over his tweets after which the lawyer tweeted a picture of himself holding up a Re 1 coin.
Meanwhile it is yet not clear whether he would pay the fine or confront the other options.
“Freedom of speech cannot be curtailed,” said the Supreme Court while handing down the sentence, referring to “sane advice” from Attorney General KK Venugopal to the court and to Prashant Bhushan.
“My lawyer & senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted,” the 63-year-old tweeted.
My lawyer & senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted pic.twitter.com/vVXmzPe4ss
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) August 31, 2020
The top court had, on August 25, reserved its judgement on the quantum of sentence of Bhushan in connection with the case. Reserving its order on the sentence, Justice Mishra had asked the senior lawyer to tender an apology saying there is no harm in apologising if a mistake has been made.
During the hearing, advocate Dr Rajeev Dhavan had appeared for Bhushan and submitted that Bhushan has the highest regard for the institution but he has his opinion about last four Chief Justices of India (CJIs) about the way in which this court has gone wrong.
Attorney General KK Venugopal had said that several sitting and retired judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts (former) have commented upon corruption in the higher judiciary and suggested to let Bhushan go with a warning if he expresses regret for his remarks.
Bhushan was earlier this month held guilty of contempt of court by the Supreme Court for two of his tweets, the first one posted on June 29, related to his post on a picture of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde on a high-end bike.
In his second tweet, Bhushan expressed his opinion on the role of last four CJIs amid the state of affairs in the country. Meanwhile, another contempt of court case against Prashant Bhushan is also pending before the top court.
