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Court was dealing with a contempt plea filed by the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) seeking criminal contempt proceedings against S Gurumurthy over his tweet wherein he had questioned whether Justice Muralidhar was Senior Advocate P Chidambaram’s junior.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday 'discharged' Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue S Gurumurthy in 2018 Contempt proceedings initiated for his tweet on Justice S Muralidhar for the judgment in INX Media case.
The division bench of Justice Sidharth Mridul and Justice Gaurang Kanth said, "Mr. Tiku, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the association brings our attention to the reply of the show cause notice, brings our attention to Para....Mr. Tiku points out the apology expressed by S. Gurumurthy as well as the statement that he has the highest respect for the judiciary and in all humility is truly sorry for any offence that may have been caused".
"Considered in conjunction, with the circumstance that Mr. S. Gurumurthy has since taken down all the allegedly offensive tweets, may constitute sufficient compliance with the directions issued by this court in July 2022. And the same therefore be accepted", the court added.
"In addition, we observe that Mr. S. Gurumurthy had appeared before this court in person on his own and expressed remorse. In view of the foregoing, and after considering the facts and circumstances elaborated herein above, we accept Mr. Gurumurthy's apology and deep remorse for the subject incident and consider it appropriate to discharge him. Mr. S. Gurumurthy, therefore, stands discharged", the court ordered.
During the hearing today, Justice Mridul remarked orally, "......sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Unnecessarily dragging an honorable judge's name in all of this controversy, reported all the time, whatever for. Do you think we rely on newspaper reports and tweets for our dignity? Do we? As we have said, in a number of cases, our dignity rests on surer footing. We are not dependent on criticism, fair or unfair, for our dignity".
Senior Advocate Rakesh Tinku appeared for the DHCBA and Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani appeared for Gurumurthy.
Last week, the division bench had emphasised on putting a quietus to the contempt proceedings. "Our view is that this gentleman (S. Gurumurthy) against whom you're alleging contempt has appeared before the court, he has expressed his remorse. Sometimes it is important to put a quietus to all this", it had said.
The court was dealing a contempt plea filed by the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) seeking criminal contempt proceedings against Gurumurthy over his tweet wherein he questioned whether Justice S Muralidhar was Senior Advocate P Chidambaram’s junior.
The tweet was posted following the decision of a division bench led by Justice Muralidhar to award temporary protection to Karti Chidambaram in the INX Media case.
In related news, the division bench earlier in April this year 'discharged' Indian Film Director Vivek Agnihotri in the suo-motu criminal contempt case initiated against him in connection with relief provided by Justice S. Muralidhar to UAPA-accused Gautam Navlakha.
Case Title: Delhi High Court Bar Association through its Secretary v. S. Gurumurthy
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