contempt

Dr KD Singh argues that it is high time for a reform of contempt laws.

There is an old joke amongst lawyers. Annoyed with a lawyer’s argument, the judge asks the lawyer: “Counsel do you take me for an idiot?”

Delhi high court Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva has banned advocate Deepak Khosla from filing matters or appearing in a number of Delhi courts by himself without another counsel.

A Delhi high court judge initiated contempt proceedings and ordered injunction against a legal news magazine over a story alleging links between his son and a late-opening night club.

The Bombay high court has served a show cause contempt notice on the Mumbai Mirror for reporting a litigant’s allegation made in court earlier this year that a judge hearing was corrupt.

The Supreme Court Justice RM Lodha has taken suo motu cognisance against advocate Manoj Sharma, who threw ink at the Sahara chief Subrata Roy on the Supreme Court premises on Monday [Economic Times]. Lodha instructed the attorney general to find out the facts of the case today. The next hearing is scheduled for 24 March, according to the Indian Express, with Sharma having to explain why he should not be booked for contempt of court.

Sharma, a self-described activist and advocate from a village near Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, yesterday removed his shirt in the limelight of the TV cameras after his assault and shouted slogans against Roy, who was jailed in Tihar yesterday by the apex court.

Sharma has a history of unusual and attention-grabbing protests, having thrown a shoe at Suresh Kalmadi, who was the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) chief [OneIndia has a detailed timeline of his Sharma’s ‘activism’].

Update: Sharma has been sent to Tihar jail for failing to post bail, with police telling the magistrate that he is “mentally unsound” [PTI]

The chilling effect of the Delhi high court’s gag order it the Swatanter Kumar case is only the latest in a long line of examples of the media losing out in its fight to report on the judiciary, argues advocate Prashant Reddy.

Exclusive: The Indian Express and Pioneer newspapers will carry front-page apologies for misreporting court proceedings, after yesterday’s hearing in the Supreme Court’s (SC) suo motu contempt petition against the two papers.

Exclusive: The Bar Council of India’s (BCI) demonstration on 8 August has been indefinitely postponed because talks were ongoing between the lawyers’ regulator and the government, the Delhi high court was told today, disposing of the writ petition of advocate Anoop Prakash Awasthi against the BCI.

Exclusive: The Delhi high court issued notice to the Bar Council of India (BCI) to explain how it would continue with its proposed agitation against the Higher Education and Research (HER) Bill 2011, with the BCI having taken police permission for a Dharna in Jantar Mantar on 8 August.

Exclusive: Advocate Anoop Prakash Awasthi’s contempt of court petition against several senior members of the Bar Council of India (BCI) and the Delhi bar council will be heard tomorrow by the Delhi high court’s chief justice.

Awasthi claims that the BCI’s nationwide two-day strike against the Higher Education and Research Bill 2011 violated an earlier Supreme Court order restricting lawyers going on strike.

Exclusive: Advocate Anoop Prakash Awasthi’s writ challenging the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) two-day strike against the Higher Education and Research Bill 2011 was not taken up by the Delhi high court yesterday.

However, Awasthi vowed to bring contempt of court proceedings tomorrow against bar council members for violating an earlier Supreme Court judgment banning two-day strikes by lawyers.

Advocate Prashanth Bhushan who is currently facing contempt proceedings for having called eight out of the previous 17 Chief Justices of India (CJIs) corrupt, has submitted a second affidavit to the Supreme Court giving evidence of six former CJIs’ alleged corruption.

Former law minister Shanti Bhushan said that at least eight of the last 16 Chief Justices of India (CJI) were “definitely corrupt” in his defiant defence in the contempt proceedings brought against his son Prashanth Bhushan who had given an interview to national magazine Tehelka on September 5 2009 making the same allegation.