NEW DELHI: Prashant Bhushan told the Supreme Court that he was pained at being held guilty of contempt but would not apologise for the tweets which were his “small attempt” to discharge his “highest duty”. “I am pained that I have been held guilty of committing contempt of the court whose majesty I have tried to uphold — not as a courtier or cheerleader but as a humble guard — for over three decades, at some personal and professional cost,” the statement by Prashant Bhushan read.
“I can only reiterate that these two tweets represented my bonafide beliefs, the expression of which must be permissible in any democracy... I believe that open criticism of any institution is necessary in a democracy to safeguard the constitutional order.
“My tweets were nothing but a small attempt to discharge what I considered to be my highest duty at this juncture in the history of our republic…It would be insincere and contemptuous on my part to offer an apology for the tweets that expressed what was and continues to be my bonafide belief,” the statement added.
“I can only humbly paraphrase what Mahatma Gandhi had said in his trial: I do not ask for mercy. I do not appeal to magnanimity. I am here, therefore, to cheerfully submit to any penalty that can lawfully be inflicted upon me for what the court has determined to be an offence and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.”