Chief Justice Opts Out Of Contempt Case Against Comedian Kunal Kamra

Dealing with contempt fees, Kunal Kamra has stated jokes don’t must be defended.

New Delhi:

Supreme Court docket Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has recused himself from listening to a contempt petition towards humorist Kunal Kamra.

Mr Kamra faces contempt fees for his tweets a couple of Supreme Court docket order that granted bail to TV anchor Arnab Goswami in 2020 in a suicide case from two years earlier than that.

Since he was among the many judges who gave that order, Justice Chandrachud stated he wouldn’t be a part of the listening to into the case towards Mr Kamra.

Kunal Kamra had put out a number of tweets, raging over the Supreme Court docket granting interim bail to Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami every week after his arrest over the suicide of an architect, Anvay Naik, and his mom in 2018.

A two-judge bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee pulled up the Maharashtra authorities over the journalist’s arrest and stated: “If we as a constitutional courtroom don’t lay down regulation and defend liberty, then who will?”

Kunal Kamra has had a working feud with Mr Goswami on social media for years. Three years in the past, he was banned by a number of airways after he heckled the media character on a flight from Mumbai to Lucknow.

Providing no apology for his tweets in regards to the Supreme Court docket judgment, Kunal Kamra stated his criticism was comedy and that “jokes usually are not actuality and don’t declare to be so”.

“There is no such thing as a defence wanted for jokes, and it’s primarily based on the comic’s notion,” Mr Kamra stated, including that his posts on Twitter weren’t made with the intention of “diminishing religion of individuals within the judiciary”.

Nevertheless, he stated, “I disagree with many choices of many courts however promise this bench that I’ll respect any choice with a broad smile and won’t vilify this bench or the Supreme Court docket on this matter as a result of that will really (quantity to) contempt of courtroom.”

“I don’t imagine any authority, together with judges, would discover themselves unable to discharge their duties solely on account of being topic of satire or comedy,” the comic stated.

Promptly granting permission to prosecute Mr Kamra, the federal government’s then prime regulation officer KK Venugopal had stated that the comic’s tweets have been “in unhealthy style” and “crossed the road between humour and contempt”.