After Attorney General K K Venugopal, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta has also declined the plea seeking permission to initiate contempt proceedings against actor Swara Bhasker alleging her of making derogatory and scandalous remarks on Supreme Court.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned that similar request has already been rejected by the Attorney General of India K K Venugopal. Therefore, the petitioner’s request to him is misconceived.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta wrote a letter to advocate Anuj Saxena appearing for the petitioner Usha Shetty in which he mentioned, “the request to initiate contempt was forwarded to the Hon’ble Attorney General of India who on 21.08.2020 has declined to provide his consent.”
He further added, “Considering the fact that the Ld Attorney General for India has already declined to grant his consent in the present matter for reasons detailed in the letter dated 21.08.2020, the present request made to me is misconceived.”
In the petition, contempt proceedings were sought against Swara Bhasker citing two paragraphs containing alleged remarks from the actor during a penal discussion on February 1, 2020.
The paragraph is about her remarks on Ayodhaya’s judgment while another one mentioned about the government, police, courts and the Constitution.
“The statement in the first part appears to me a factual one and is a perception of a speaker. The comment refers to the Judgment of Supreme Court and is not an attack on the institution. This does not offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalise or lower the authority of the Supreme Court,” wrote Attorney General.
“The second statement is a vague statement not related to any particular Court and something which is so general that no one would take any serious note of this statement… I do not think that this is a case where the offence of scandalising of Court or lowering the authority of the Court would arise,” venugopal further added.
Swara Bhasker’s first statement stated, “We are living in a country where the Supreme Court of our country states that the demolition of Babri Masjid was unlawful and in the same judgment rewards the same people who brought down the mosque.”
In the second statement, Swara said, “We are ruled by police forces that do not believe in the Constitution. It seems we are now in a situation where our courts are not sure whether they believe in the Constitution or not.”
Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act and Rule 3 of Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of Supreme Court states that in order to hear a contempt plea by a private individual, consent of Attorney General or Solicitor General is mandatory.
