Criminal lawyer RK Anand, who had defended former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao and some of his cabinet colleagues in criminal cases, found himself in an indefensible position.
Criminal lawyer RK Anand, who had defended former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao and some of his cabinet colleagues in criminal cases, found himself in an indefensible position on Wednesday when the Supreme Court held him guilty of contempt of court and asked why the sentence barring him from the profession for four months should not be extended.
Anand's long-time friend and noted criminal law expert IU Khan, sentenced by the Delhi High Court for the same offence, was, however, acquitted.
The two lawyers were charged with interfering with the administration of justice in the BMW hit-and-run case in which Sanjeev Nanda killed six labourers 10 years ago. NDTV, a television news channel, had carried out a sting operation two years ago, which showed the two lawyers trying to influence controversial witness Sunil Kulkarni.
Expressing dismay at Anand's posture during the hearing, a bench comprising justice BN Agrawal, justice GS Singhvi, and justice Aftab Alam observed, "RK Anand took a posture of defiant denial and tried to present himself as one who was more sinned against than a sinner."
Anand had even sought to get the case transferred from the bench that was seized of the contempt petition against him. The bench said his request to a judge not to hear the case was with "the intent to intimidate the court or to get better of an inconvenient judge or to obfuscate the issues or to cause obstruction and delay the proceedings or in any other way frustrate or obstruct the course of justice".
On the plea by Khan's lawyer PP Rao that the TV channel should have carried out the stings after obtaining the permission of the trial court or the chief justice of the Delhi High Court and should have submitted the recordings to the court, the Supreme Court said, "The media would then be acting as some sort of special vigilance agency for the court. It would be a sad day for the court to employ the media for setting its own house in order; and media, too, would certainly not relish the role of being snoopers for the court."
Pre-screening of the material, the Supreme Court held, would amount to pre-censorship. It also held that the sting operation was not a media trial but in the larger public interest.
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