Yashaswini Manasa
The Court will act with seriousness and severity where justice is jeopardized by a gross and/or unfounded attack on the judges and where the attack is calculated to obstruct or destroy the judicial process. - Supreme Court, In Re: Prashant Bhushan & Anr.
Contempt of court, as a concept seeks to insulate the judicial institutions from motivated attacks and unwarranted criticism, and as a legal mechanism to punish those who lower the judiciary’s authority which results in loss of public trust its impartiality. If by contumacious words or writings the common man is led to lose his respect for the judge acting in the discharge of his judicial duties, then the confidence reposed in the courts is rudely shaken and the offender needs to be punished. [In Re Arundhati Roy (2002) 3 SCC 343.]
Art.129 and Art.215 of the Indian Constitution confers the Supreme Court and High court respectively the power to punish contempt of itself. The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, further gives statutory backing to this power. This law bifurcates it as civil and criminal contempt. Civil contempt under Section 2(b) is considered when someone willfully disobeys a court order, or willfully breaches an undertaking given to court. Criminal contempt consists of three forms: (a) words, written or spoken, signs and actions that “scandalize” or “tend to scandalize” or “lower” or “tends to lower” the authority of any court (b) prejudices or interferes with any judicial proceeding and (c) interferes with or obstructs the administration of justice. The punishment being imprisonment for a term up to six months and/or a fine of up to ₹. 2,000.
Making allegations against the judiciary or individual judges, attributing motives to judgments and judicial functioning and any scurrilous attack on the conduct of judges are normally considered matters that scandalize the judiciary. Although statements made against an individual judge are not to be considered contempt of court, the Supreme Court held that, ‘when the statement is made against a judge and it has an adverse effect in the administration of justice, the Court would certainly be entitled to invoke the contempt jurisdiction.’
True, fair reporting of judicial proceedings or fair criticism on the merits of the judicial order are valid defenses, if it was invoked in a bona fide manner. But there is a very thin line between criticism and vilification. Once that line is crossed, and the statement substantially interferes with the due course of justice, it naturally amounts to contempt.
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