Stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra is going to face criminal contempt of court for making unsavoury comments on the Supreme Court. Kunal Kamra objected to the decision of the court which granted interim bail to Republic TV’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.
It has been reported that Kamra posted four tweets after Goswami was granted interim bail in a 2018 abetment to suicide case on Wednesday, with one of them showing a picture of the Supreme Court building swathed in saffron colour with the BJP flag flying atop it.
Venugopal said that the tweet insinuated that the “Supreme Court is not an independent and impartial institution and so too its judges, but on the other hand is a court of the ruling party, the BJP, existing for the BJP’s benefit”.
Attorney General KK Venugopal has given his consent to initiate court proceedings against the comedian saying the tweets are in “bad taste” and it is time that people understand that attacking the apex court brazenly will attract punishment.
“I have gone through each one of the tweets which you have annexed for consent to proceed by way of criminal contempt against Kunal Kamra. The tweets which I am extracting below are not only in bad taste but clearly cross the line between humour and contempt of the court,” the Attorney General said in his letter to one of the applicants who had sought for initiation of contempt proceedings against Kamra, PTI reported.
“I therefore grant consent to proceed by way of initiating contempt proceedings against Kunal Kamra,” Venugopal said.
A law student and two lawyers wrote a letter to the Supreme Court, accusing Kamra of scandalising the apex court in a series of tweets, lowering the authority of the court. In response to that letter, the Attorney General gave his nod to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Kunal Kamra.
Days after the Attorney General ordered to initiate court proceedings against the comedian, Kamra refused to apologise for tweets against SC and said that he would not retract his tweets criticising the Supreme Court or apologise. “No lawyers, no apology, no fine, no waste of space,” Kamra said on Twitter.
“The tweets I recently put out have been found in contempt of court. All that I tweeted was from my view of the Supreme Court of India giving a partial decision in favour of a Prime Time Loudspeaker,” Kamra said in a statement put out on Twitter and addressed to AG Venugopal and the SC judges.
“My view hasn’t changed because the silence of the Supreme Court of India on matters of other’s personal liberty cannot go uncriticized. I don’t intend to retract my tweets or apologise for them. I believe they speak for themselves,” he added.
