Lucknow based advocate Siddhant Mishra on Thursday wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde urging him to take Suo moto cognizance on the defamatory tweets of Kunal Kamra against the sitting judge of Supreme Court Hon’ble Justice Dr D.Y Chandarchud.
“It is with great concern that I thought it proper to address this letter to Your Lordship so as to highlight the series of tweets by Mr. Kunal Kamra. The contemnor is an artist with 1.7 Million followers on twitter and is involved in making scandalous allegations against Hon’ble Justice Dr Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud. The allegations made are unfounded and are capable of shaking the very pedestal of the judicial administration and also undermine the faith of common man in the administration of justice.” the letter by Siddhant Mishra reads. The letter further says “That our constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression; freedom is not absolute as envisaged by our framers under Article 19(2). That the contemnor has sought to abuse this very freedom in order to scandalize the institution as a whole. Though a fair criticism of a judgment is permissible but the same cannot be exceeded to include in making allegations against the sitting judge of this court.”
The letter appealed to the Hon’ble Supreme Court “It is the fundamental duty of every citizens to abide the Indian Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions. There can be no justification to make unfounded allegation of the courts being compromised and particularly to put derogatory tweets against the sitting judge of this court as public interest demands that there should be no interference with the judicial process.”
“That it is unfortunate that the contemnor feels that he is above the rule of law due to courts inaction and he is the only champion of the causes. It is evident from his tweets that the hunger of cheap publicity is increasing which is making it more difficult for the courts to render justice fearlessly as it leaves a deep psychological impact on the Judges by serious and unwanted shadow of doubts for no good reason whatsoever.”
The petitioner prayed “Hon’ble Court takes Suo moto cognizance of the abuse of freedom of speech and expression. That it will give wrong message to the citizens throughout the country if such rabble rousing is allowed under the veil of free speech against the highest court of this country and in particular against the sitting Judge of this court.”
Personal liberty must be upheld
This comes after the Supreme Court bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee on Wednesday ordered the release of Republic TV owner and editor Arnab Goswami and his other co-accused on interim bail, after hearing the appeal against the Bombay high court order denying Goswami interim relief.
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