By Muslim Mirror Staff
Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan has refused to extend his apologies for a tweet critical to the Supreme Court. In his counter-affidavit filed to the court, Bhushan on Sunday said that the Supreme Court remained a mute spectator as communal riots ravaged north-east Delhi in February.
The counter-affidavit was filed in response to the contempt of court case initiated against him by the top court for his tweets against the apex court and the Chief Justice of India (CJI), SA Bobde.
Bhushan had posted two tweets, one against the SC on June 27 and the second against CJI Bobde two days later.
Both these tweets had led to the contempt of court case against him for which he was served notice by the SC on July 22.
In his tweet on June 29, Bhushan had posted a photo of CJI Bobde sitting on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which belonged to the son of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Sonba Musale.
Bhushan said that the CJI was riding a motorcycle without a helmet or mask, when he was keeping the SC shut, due to raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19), denying justice to millions.
Bhushan, in his affidavit, offered a limited apology for that part of the tweet, which said that the CJI was not wearing a helmet stating that he failed to notice that the bike was stationary and Bobde was not riding it but only sitting on it.
Earlier on June 27, he had tweeted that the SC’s role and four former CJIs in aiding the destruction of democracy will be taken note of by historians in the future.
This tweet, he said in his affidavit, is his impression about the manner and functioning of the SC in the past 10 years and especially about the role the last four CJIs that has led to the apex court failing to check executive high-handedness.
“Such expression of opinion however outspoken, disagreeable or however unpalatable to some, cannot constitute contempt of court. This proposition has been laid down by several judgments of this court and in foreign jurisdictions such as Britain, USA (United States of America), and Canada,” Bhushan contended.
