Prashant Bhushan during a press conference at the Press Club of India (Ajay Aggarwal/ Hindustan Times via Getty Images)Lawyer Prashant Bhushan has been found guilty of serious contempt of court by the Supreme Court over his tweets against the Chief Justice of India and the apex court. The order was pronounced by a three-judge bench led by Justice Arun Mishra.
Bhushan will now be sentenced on 20 August and faces up to 6 months in jail.
The proceedings against Bhushan were initiated over the tweets he made on 27 and 29 June:
When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the SC in this destruction, and more particularly the role of the last four CJIs
The CJI rides a Rs 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!
In the aforementioned tweets he had cast aspersions on the Supreme Court and the current and former Chief Justices. The Supreme Court had taken suo moto cognisance of the matter in July.
Another contempt of court case against Prashant Bhushan is pending before the Supreme Court. The matter dates back to 2009 when Bhushan had called former Chief Justices corrupt.
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