Supreme Court drops 2009 contempt case against Adv Prashant Bhushan
In an interview with Tehelka magazine in 2009, Prashant Bhushan had remarked that several previous Chief Justices of India were corrupt.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday closed the contempt case filed against Advocate Prashant Bhushan for his remarks on judicial corruption in Tehelka magazine in 2009.
Contempt proceedings against journalist Tarun Tejpal, who headed the magazine at that time, have also been terminated.
In his interview with the magazine, Bhushan had said that several previous Chief Justices of India are corrupt.
After considering the explanation given by Bhushan and Tejpal, a three-judge bench of Justices Indira Banerjee, Surya Kant and MM Sundresh decided to close the contempt proceedings.
The 2009 case came to the fore in 2020, when it was taken up along with the contempt case filed against Bhushan in 2020 over some of his tweets.
Bhushan said that he used the word 'corruption' in the interview in a wider sense to include any act of impropriety other than mere financial corruption. The top court was further told that mere utterance of corruption charge could not be contempt of court.
A complaint was made by Senior Advocate Harish Salve who alleged that Bhushan in his interview said that half of the last 16 Chief Justices were corrupt. Salve said that Bhushan in the interview had stated that he had no proof for the allegations.