WHEN SILENCE IS
The Supreme Court’s use of its inherent powers to punish activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan for contempt of itself raises troubling questions about its recent past besides inviting a huge backlash from the civil society.
“I LIVE WITH THE REALISATION THAT I HAVE received from this institution much more than I have had the opportunity to give it…. Today, in these troubling times, the hopes of the people of India vest in this court to ensure the rule of law and the Constitution and not an untrammeled rule of the executive. This casts a duty, especially for an officer of this court like myself, to speak up, when I believe there is a deviation from its sterling record. Therefore, I expressed myself in good faith, not to malign the Supreme Court or any particular Chief Justice, but to offer constructive criticism so that the court can arrest any drift away from its long-standing role as a guardian of the Constitution and custodian of people’s rights…. An apology cannot be a mere incantation and any apology has to, as the court has itself put it, be sincerely made…. If I retract a statement before this court that I otherwise believe to be true or offer an insincere apology, that in my eyes would amount to the contempt of conscience and of an institution that I hold in highest esteem.”
—Prashant Bhushan, activist and Supreme Court lawyer, in his supplementary statement to the Supreme Court on August 25 in response to the court finding him guilty of contempt of court.
His offence: he posted two tweets in June critical of the Supreme Court’s functioning during the lockdown, and of the last four chief justices of India, for their role in the ‘destruction of democracy’.
The three-judge bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Arun Mishra, B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari, while considering Bhushan’s supplementary statement, before sentencing him for contempt, said: “What is wrong in using the word