Produce Kamra’s fresh comments in ongoing contempt proceedings, may be an aggravating factor for deciding punishment: AG KK Venugopal

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On an application seeking consent to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against comedian Kunal Kamra for his recent remarks against the Supreme Court, the Attorney General of India KK Venugopal suggested that the fresh statements should be placed before the Supreme Court in the ongoing proceedings. 

Since Kamra's alleged fresh statements were found to be in respect of those very contempt proceedings which are already pending against him, AG Venugopal wrote to the applicant, Bhartiya Janta Party's Punit Agarwal, 

"It would therefore be more appropriate for you to file a suitable application to place these statements before the Supreme Court in the pending matter, which may, if the Court deems fit, be relevant as an aggravating factor insofar as the question of punishment is concerned."

He pointed out that against Kamra, consent had already been granted for initiation of proceedings for criminal contempt of the Supreme Court and those proceedings are currently pending before the Court.

Agarwal had filed the application seeking AG Venugopal's permission to initiate proceedings against Kamra for criminal contempt under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 read with Rule 3(c) of the Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court of India, 1975.

Besides Kamra's fresh statements made during the comedy show, Agarwal had also referred to certain other tweets all of which were said to be dated November 11, 2020.

However, reagrding those tweets, AG replied that the time period for initiation of criminal contempt proceedings in respect of those statements had elapsed in terms of Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act,1971.

"Therefore no question of granting consent so far as the statements said to have been made on 11.11.2020 would arise", he added.

Recently, a letter was written by Advocate Ashutosh J Dubey to the Chief Justice of India to initiate criminal contempt against Kamra for the alleged disparaging remarks against the Supreme Court in his new video titled "BE LIKE".