KOCHI: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday initiated suo motu criminal contempt of court proceedings against M S Ravi, the printer and publisher of Kerala Kaumudi, M S Mani, editor-in-chief, Deepu Ravi, managing director, and M S Madhusoodanan, editor, for carrying a front-page editorial on December 18, 2008 touching upon the conduct of Justice K Hema while hearing the bail application of the accused in the Sr Abhaya murder case.
The editorial captioned “The comfort of blind-folded eves of the Goddess of Justice’’ had been placed before the designated judge by the Chief Justice.
The designated judge ordered to initiate suo motu proceedings against the newspaper for making contumacious, baseless and denigrating statements against the functioning of a Single Judge and the Acting Chief Justice of the court which have the tendency to interfere with the due course of justice.
It is alleged that the statements have the tendency to interfere with the proceedings in the bail application of the accused in the Sr Abhaya case by the media and as such tamper with the proceedings pending before the said judge. The editorial conveys an impression that Justice Hema was being influenced by a retired judge of the Supreme Court to help the accused in Abhaya case. Also, it conveys the impression that the Acting Chief Justice J B Koshy had rejected the CBI’s application to transfer the bail application to another Bench on communal grounds.
The statements tend to reduce the esteem of the court in the eyes of general public and scandalise and lower the authority of the court and tend to interfere with the due course of the pending judicial proceedings.