The Supreme Court on Friday issued show-cause notices to Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and journalist Nikhil Wagle in a criminal contempt petition filed by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) over their remarks against Chief Justice of India Surya Kant.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the respondents to explain why contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against them. The Bench also exempted them from personal appearance.
SCBA President and Senior Advocate Pradeep Rai, along with SCBA Vice-President Senior Advocate Rahul Kaushik and Honorary Secretary Pragya Baghel, appeared for the petitioner, the Supreme Court Bar Association.
SCBA president submitted: “We are pained to initiate this contempt petition. One is a responsible Member of Parliament; the other is a senior journalist.”
He said the association had decided to approach the Court because ignoring the remarks could encourage others to make similar statements, bringing the institution into disrepute.
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“We thought if we ignore this now, there are so many other persons, they are actually instigated by this. They are doing something completely inappropriate and bringing complete disrepute to the organisation,” he submitted.
During the hearing, the CJI observed that those making such remarks might not realise that they were being drawn into a situation that could ultimately harm them. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta instantly responded to this remark of the CJI and supported the SCBA’s decision to initiate proceedings, submitting that some people deliberately make such statements in the belief that they can exert pressure on the judiciary.
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“Many of them understand. I support SCBA. Many of them understand; they do it deliberately; they misunderstand that it may not be successfully bring pressure on the Court. They believe that it brings pressure. The attempt is that, maybe a futile one,” SG submitted.
The CJI emphasised that the judiciary would continue to protect individual rights irrespective of attempts to exert pressure on it, noting that even those criticising the courts had approached them in the past for protection, and that the judiciary had never shied away from upholding their rights.
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“Whenever personal liberty or any rights are jeopardised, each one of them will have to… and have been in past also coming to the court seeking rescue and probably the courts havenever lagged behind in protecting those rights. And if you still keep on condemning, criticising, taking left and right, it’s very unfortunate, very, very unfortunate. We hope that better sense prevails on everyone, that’s all. We can pray. We are issuing a show-cause notice.”
The contempt petition arises from remarks made by Sanjay Raut and Nikhil Wagle concerning the CJI after he refused to meet opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge.
Wagle had posted an abusive remark targeting the CJI on his X account: “**** you CJI.” He subsequently deleted the post and tendered an unconditional apology.
MP Sanjay Raut criticised the CJI for refusing to meet Rahul Gandhi and other Opposition leaders over concerns regarding the functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI). Alleging that judges socialised with political leaders, he said:
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“You can meet them, play with them, have dinner or lunch with them, with Chief Ministers. You can suddenly resign to join a political party. You don’t care for principles and law then but when we want to meet you to save democracy…you say we will not meet political leaders.”
In a separate interaction with the media, Raut also alleged that judges attended BJP political programmes and that BJP Chief Ministers organised dinners to welcome them.