Plea for contempt proceedings against Swara Bhasker rejected
New Delhi:
India’s Attorney General rejected a plea to initiate contempt proceedings against actor Swara Bhasker for his comments on the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Babri Masjid and Ayodhya land dispute; the comments were described by the petitioner as “derogatory”, “scandalous” and “an attack on the institution”.
On Sunday evening, Attorney General KK Venugopal said the comment was “the speaker’s perception” and “offered no comment on the Supreme Court itself or said anything that would scandalize or tend to scandalize. .. the authority of the Supreme Court “.
“In my opinion, this statement does not constitute criminal contempt,” said the Attorney General.
According to the ANI news agency, in February this year, Ms Bhasker attended a panel discussion organized by a group called the “Mumbai Collective”, during which she allegedly made “derogatory and scandalous statements in connection with the Supreme Court of India “.
The statement, written in full in the Attorney General’s letter today, read: “We live in a country where the Supreme Court of our country declares the demolition of Babri Masjid to be illegal and, in the same judgment , rewards the people who brought down the mosque in the same way.
In November last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the once disputed land of Ayodhya was wholly owned by the deity Ram Lalla, or the child Lord Ram.
However, the court also declared that the destruction of the 16th century Babri Mosque in December 1992 was illegal and constituted a “calculated act of destroying a place of public worship”.
Ms Bhasker’s second comment, also written in the Attorney General’s letter today, said that “we are ruled by a government that does not believe in our Constitution … we are ruled by police forces that do not believe in the Constitution … it seems we are now in a situation where our courts do not know whether they believe in the Constitution … “
She goes on to say that the way forward has been “shown” to us by numerous civil society protests led by students and women in particular.
The attorney general’s refusal to pursue a criminal contempt case against Ms Bhasker comes days after lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan was found guilty of the same charge. Mr Bhushan, the court ruled, had crossed a line when commenting on the judiciary.
Mr Bhushan, in his defense, said he saw the tweets “as an attempt to work for the betterment of the institution”, and that open criticism was needed to safeguard democracy in India.
