Prashant Bhushan gets second chance to apologise to Supreme Court

The Supreme Court (SC) gave another chance to well-known public interest litigation lawyer Prashant Bhushan to tender an apology for objectionable remarks that he purportedly made against Chief Justice of India (CJI) SH Kapadia. Bhushan had allegedly made the comments when Kapadia, then yet to be elevated to CJI’s post, was hearing the Sterlite case.

The SC bench said on Tuesday that Bhushan could revisit his earlier plea defending his action and file an apology. The court’s intervention came after Bhushan’s lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, contended that the issue under dispensation “isn’t doing good to anyone”.

Jethmalani requested the court to put the matter to rest as it will not serve any public purpose. He also said that “Chief Justice Kapadia is a role model of integrity”, hearing which the court said it had made the same offer to Bhushan twice but he declined.

However, Jethmalani, defending Bhushan said that the interview he gave to a journal does not attract contempt charges as whatever was said was not intended to bring down the dignity and majesty of the court. His attempt was to draw the attention to the “sorry state of affairs in Indian judiciary”, which if not checked in time would do a great damage to the institution, Jethmalani said.

Contempt action cannot be initiated in case a person, who is alleged to have committed the contempt, didn’t have the intention to malign the court or undermine the majesty of law, he said.