SC clarifies: No suo motu contempt case against scribe

New Delhi, Feb 16: The Supreme Court on Tuesday late night clarified that its website “inadvertently” showed that a suo motu contempt case against journalist Rajdeep Sardesai for his tweets has been registered.

“This is in context with the news item being flashed in some news channels about initiating suo motu criminal contempt proceeding against Rajdeep Sardesai by the Supreme Court, it is made clear that no such proceeding has been initiated against Rajdeep Sardesai.

“However, status shown at the Supreme Court’s website vide case no. SMC (Crl) 02/2021 has been placed inadvertently. Appropriate action to rectify the same is under process,” Supreme Court Deputy Registrar (public relation) Rakesh Sharma said.

Earlier, the news with regard to the suo motu contempt case against Sardesai was carried in the media based on the information available with the top court's website. It was reported that the Supreme Court has registered a suo motu contempt case against Rajdeep Sardesai for his tweets allegedly scandalising judiciary.

The case was registered following a petition filed by one Aastha Khurana through advocate Om Prakash Parihar under Article 129 of the Constitution to the Chief Justice of India for initiating contempt proceedings against Sardesai. On September 17, 2020, Attorney General K K Venugopal had declined his consent to initiate contempt action against Sardesai for the same set of tweets.

UCHINOURA, February. 16

Japan’s first full-fledged space satellite orbited the earth today, ending a long embarrassing series of failures for local scientists.

The 63 Kg (138.8 pound) satellite began sending back radio signals to this southern Japanese space centre almost two hours after a flawless launch by a four-stage solid fuel rocket.

Exact details of its orbit were not immediately available.

Japan joined the space club a year ago with the orbiting of the nose cone from a four-stage rocket, but its radio signals ceased after 15 hours.