NEW DELHI: Expressing its displeasure over the way the social media was being misused to make comments on pending cases, the Supreme Court has said that it will not tolerate distortion of facts.
A two-judge bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M Trivedi made these observation, while hearing a contempt plea filed by Aminul Haque Laskar, who is now part of the Congress (INC), against All India United Democratic leader and Assam MLA Karim Uddin Barbhuiya. Justice Bose retired on Wednesday.
The apex court also asked Barbhuiya to respond to the contempt case filed against him by Laskar. “Court’s shoulders were broad enough to deal with criticism. It is a matter of serious concern that now-a-days there has been a profuse misuse of social media platforms on which the messages, comments, articles etc. are being posted in respect of the matters pending in the Court,” the bench noted.
The court also pointed out that posts on social media platforms under the guise of right to freedom of speech and expression, which have the tendency of undermining the authority of the courts or of interfering with the course of justice, deserves serious consideration.
Laskar in his contempt petition said that the AIUDF leader had uploaded a post on March 20 on Facebook claiming that he (Barbhuiya) had won a case, at a stage when the top court had only reserved its judgment in the matter.
Questioning the posts on social media with respect to pending cases, the court took said, “It was very usual that the judges do react during the course of the arguments being made by the lawyers, sometimes in favour and sometimes against a party to the proceeding. But that did not give any right to either of the parties or their lawyers to post comments or messages on the social media distorting the facts or not disclosing the correct facts of the proceedings.”
The court said such conduct needs to be taken up extremely seriously when parties attempt to interfere with pending proceedings and prejudice the administration of justice. SC fixed the matter for further hearing after four weeks. The SC ordered that a copy of the court’s order should be sent to the AG of India.
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