NEW DELHI: Defending advocate Prashant Bhushan, senior advocate Dushyant Dave had on Wednesday argued that the tweets were against the judges regarding their conduct in their personal capacity and did not obstruct administration of justice.
Dave in his day-long arguments had highlighted various controversial incidents before the court where criticism was made on the judiciary. While hinting at the press conference held by four sitting judges in 2018, Dave said, “If former judges can criticize the institute then why cannot Bhushan?” Dave also said, “Look at the sexual harassment case against the then CJI Gogoi. All the charges have been dropped against the lady and she has been reinstated now. These shows that she was speaking the truth then. Was contempt of court issued then? Justice Patnaik’s report has still not been disclosed.
A day after the Supreme Court reserved its order in the suo motu contempt case against advocate Prashant Bhushan for his two tweets allegedly against judiciary, he on Thursday moved a plea seeking to present additional evidence if the court is not satisfied with his submissions that the contempt was not made out against him.
In the fresh plea, Bhushan said, “In case the court is not satisfied by my preliminary reply and wishes to proceed further in the matter allow me to lead further evidence u/s 17(5) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, after supplying copy of the complaint by Mehak Maheshwari to me. CJI sat on his own court on Saturday. That CJI accepts a Rajya Sabha nomination and A grade security. If somebody talks about it then you cannot issue contempt against them. No institution should be free from criticism.”
He also highlighted the placing of the complaint directly before a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, when the ‘Master of the Roster’ is the Chief Justice of India. Bhushan had requested that Justice Mishra recuse himself from hearing this case.