CJI Chandrachud recuses from hearing contempt case against Kunal Kamra

New Delhi [India], January 5 (ANI): Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Thursday recused himself from hearing the contempt of court proceedings against comedian Kunal Kamra for tweets ‘critiquing the judiciary’.

A bench of CJI and Justice PS Narasimha said, “We will place this matter before a bench to which I (CJI) am not a part because the comments (tweets) were made on the order, which I have passed.” The matter was then listed for hearing after two weeks before another bench.

Four contempt petitions are pending against Kamra before the top court for his remarks against the apex court and its judges.

One of the case is for his tweets criticising the Supreme Court and CJI Chandrachud after an order was passed by the apex court in November 2020 where bail was granted to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.
CJI Chandrachud headed the bench had granted bail to Goswami, which led to his recusal from the matter.

On January 29, 2021, Kamra in his affidavit before the apex court had defended his tweets against the judiciary, saying India would be reduced to a “country of incarcerated artists and flourishing lapdogs” if powerful people and institutions show an inability to “tolerate rebuke or criticism”.

Kamra had refused to apologise for his tweets criticising the Supreme Court, commenting in a statement that “silence of the Supreme Court on matters of other’s personal liberty cannot go uncriticised.”

Comedian Kamra had said public faith in the Judiciary cannot be shaken by any criticism or commentary but only by the court’s own actions and accord.
Filing his reply on the contempt notice issued to him for his tweets for allegedly denigrating judiciary and judges, Kamra bad said no institution of power, not even Courts are beyond criticism in a democracy.

Kamra said that there needs to be no defence for jokes, which are based on comedian’s perception to make people laugh.

His tweets were not published with the intention of insulting the Court but to draw its attention to and prompt an engagement with issues that he believes are relevant to the Indian democracy, the affidavit of Kamra had stated.

Requesting the Supreme Court to dismiss the contempt petitions filed against him he urged the top court to demonstrate that the freedom of speech and expression is a cardinal constitutional value, and the possibility of being offended is a necessary incident to the exercise of this right.

At the end, Kamra concluded, “if this Court believes I have crossed a line and wants to shut down my internet indefinitely, then I too will write Happy Independence Day postcards every 15th August just like my Kashmiri friends”.

The then Attorney General KK Venugopal had given his nod to the petitioners for initiating contempt proceedings against the comic artists for allegedly denigrating judiciary and judges.

The consent for contempt proceedings against Kamra and Taneja followed multiple letters of requests to Attorney General KK Venugopal, including those from Shrirang Katneshwarkar, a law student from Aurangabad, Rizwan Siddiquee, an advocate, Allahabad-based Advocate Anuj Singh, and Pune-based lawyers Amey Abhay Sirsikar and Abhishek Sharad Raskar.

Attorney General giving his consent said the cartoonist had tweeted a series of illustrations, which Venugopal said was ‘gross insinuation’ against the top court of the country and “audacious assault and insult to the institution”.

Attorney General while granting sanction for contempt proceedings observed that the cartoons have ‘shaken public trust in judiciary’.