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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has sentenced a practising advocate and a former Army personnel till the rising of the court for contempt of court, emphasising the need to maintain the dignity and reputation of judicial officers and to protect them from motivated, libellous and unfounded allegations. 

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P S Narasimha said the Delhi High Court was correct in not accepting the apology tendered by the appellant advocate since it was not bonafide and lacked in sincerity, apart from being belated and a mere ‘lip service’.

"The appellant’s conduct before the High Court and for that matter, even before this court, amounts to undermining the system of the law and interfering with the course of justice administration. The High Court observed a pattern in the behaviour of the appellant. He has had a habit of misbehaving with a bench which is not agreeing with him. The misbehaviour goes to the extent of casting aspersions and threatening the judges hearing the matters," the bench said.

Court, however, modified sentence of three months imprisonment awarded to advocate Gulshan Bajwa for the contempt of court to till the rising of the court, in view of his age and certain ailments, holding that the finding of the conviction in the case warranted no interference.

"We are of the opinion that the High Court correctly rejected the apology. An apology must evidence remorse with respect to the contemptuous acts and is not to be used as a weapon to purge the guilty of their offence. Further, an apology lacking in sincerity and not evidencing contriteness, cannot be accepted," the bench added.

Advocate Bajwa challenged the validity of the Delhi High Court's 2006 order holding him guilty of contempt of court for giving threat to a lady counsel after seeking adjournment in a matter.

"This is a long-drawn case in which the appellant has been committing successive acts of contempt. There are about seven instances which the High Court has taken into account, where the conduct of the appellant came under scrutiny in different proceedings. In all those cases, the egregious act of contempt of the appellant was recorded," top court noted.

It was further found that after top court had granted stay on the High Court's order in 2007, the record of proceedings were replete with requests for adjournments, and finally, by order on August 01, 2023, the court vacated the interim order and directed that the case will be heard without any further adjournments.

Among his submissions, the appellant contended the instant matter must be heard a particular judge who issued notice, none of the connected matters is related to instant case, court martial proceedings are not related to the case, the threat to the lady counsel was nothing but an elderly advice, no show cause notice was served upon him and the judges are biased against him.

The bench, however, said the submissions were not appealing. "Even here, the appellant is trying to resort to forum shopping by asking us to refer the matter to a judge who had issued notice in a connected matter. The appellant has failed to see that notice in the lead matter was issued more than a decade and half ago," it observed.

It further said making an assertion that there was no service of the notice was factually wrong. The appellant, while making an allegation of bias should have supplemented it with cogent material, which he has failed to do. This again, is an irresponsible statement, it added.

Case Title: Gulshan Bajwa vs. Registrar, High Court of Delhi & Anr