Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
Arun Mishra, B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari

JUDGMENT

1. A petition came to be filed in this Court by one Mahek Maheshwari bringing to the notice of this Court, a tweet made by Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Advocate, alleged contemnor No. 1 praying therein to initiate contempt proceedings against the alleged contemnors for wilfully and deliberately using hate/scandalous speech against this Court and entire judicial system. The Registry placed the said petition on the Administrative side of this Court seeking direction as to whether it should be listed for hearing or not, as consent of the learned Attorney General for India had not been obtained by the said Shri Maheshwari to file the said petition. After examining the matter on the Administrative side, this Court on the administrative side directed the matter to be listed on the Judicial side to pass appropriate orders. Accordingly, the petition was placed before us on 22.7.2020. On the said date, we passed the following order:

This petition was placed before us on the administrative side whether it should be listed for hearing or not as permission of the Attorney General for India has not been obtained by the Petitioner to file this petition. After examining the matter on administrative side, we have directed the matter to be listed before the Court to pass appropriate orders. We have gone through the petition. We find that the tweet in question, made against the CJI, is to the following effect:

CJI rides a 50 Lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP leader at Raj Bhavan Nagpur, without a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC in Lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!

Apart from that, another tweet has been published today in the Times of India which was made by Shri Prashant Bhushan on June 27, 2020, when he tweeted, "When historians in future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs.

We are, prima facie, of the view that the aforesaid statements on Twitter have brought the administration of justice in disrepute and are capable of undermining the dignity and authority of the Institution of Supreme Court in general and the office of the Chief Justice of India in particular, in the eyes of public at large.

We take suo motu cognizance of the aforesaid tweet also apart from the tweet quoted above and suo motu register the proceedings.

We issue notice to the Attorney General for India and to Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Advocate also.

Shri Sajan Poovayya, learned Senior Counsel has appeared along with Mr. Priyadarshi Banerjee and Mr. Manu Kulkarni, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the Twitter, and submitted that the Twitter Inc., California, USA is the correct description on which the tweets were made by Mr. Prashant Bhushan. Let the reply be also filed by them.

List on 05.08.2020.

2. In response to the notice issued by this Court, both the alleged contemnors have filed their respective affidavit-in-reply. Mr. Prashant Bhushan, the alleged contemnor No. 1, has filed a detailed affidavit running into 134 pages, which a........