NOT THE ANSWER
“apology” or seeking apology? Will it amount to admission of the guilt? Apology is a magical word, which can heal many things. Gandhiji used to do that. If you have hurt anybody, you must apply balm. One should not feel belittled by that.”
For a dispassionate observer of the proceedings before the Supreme Court in this case, the answers to the questions posed by the bench were available in Bhushan’s supplementary statement. Therefore, the bench’s inquisitive queries on apology made many wonder whether it read and understood Bhushan’s initial and supplementary statements in their entirety.
The word ‘incantation” used by Bhushan in the statement is an answer to the question why ‘apology’ should not be be used as a magical word to heal an imaginary hurt, and in that process, evade punishment.
The bench’s reference to Mahatma Gandhi’s use of apology appears to be aimed at Bhushan himself relying on Gandhi in his first statement, which he submitted to the court on August 20. Bhushan said then:
“My tweets were nothing but a small attempt to discharge what I considered to be my highest duty at this juncture in the history of our republic…. It would be insincere and contemptuous on my part to offer an apology for the tweets that expressed what was and continues to be my bona fide belief. Therefore, I can only humbly paraphrase what the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi had said in his trial: I do not ask for mercy. I do not appeal to magnanimity. I am here, therefore, to cheerfully submit to any penalty that can lawfully be inflicted upon me for what the Court has determined to be an offence, and what appears to me to the highest duty of a citizen.”
Mahatma Gandhi refused to apologise to the court even when he was asked to in the contempt of court proceedings against him because he genuinely felt that he did no wrong by publishing and commenting on a letter written by a judge, which might affect pending proceedings in the high court, in the public interest.
It is not clear whether the Supreme Court bench was aware of the historic context in which Gandhi made those remarks refusing to apologise, and offering himself to be punished, which inspired Bhushan to do so similarly in the contempt proceedings against him. Had Gandhi wanted to apologise in order to heal the sense of hurt of the judges—as the Supreme Court felt on August 25 what a contemnor is expected to do—it would have certainly appeared as insincere. But, like the judges of the Bombay High Court in the colonial era, it appeared the three judges had no compunction in seeking an unconditional, involuntary, and insincere apology from Bhushan. It is not as if Bhushan would refuse to offer regret if he had realised that he was in the wrong. On February 1 last year, he had tweeted about the deliberations of the committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to select a new director for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after the removal of the then Director, Alok Verma. Bhushan, quoting a letter written by the Leader of the Opposition and Congress leader, Mallikarjun Kharge, (who was a member of the selection committee) had hinted at the possibility of the Attorney General of India, K.K. Venugopal, submitting, on behalf of the Centre, fabricated minutes of the meeting of the selection committee to the Supreme Court which was hearing a challenge by Alok Verma against his removal. Venugopal, who had submitted the minutes in a sealed cover to the bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, alleged that Bhushan had intentionally raised doubts about his integrity and honesty. When Bhushan realised his mistake, he admitted it to the court, and Venugopal requested the court to drop the contempt proceedings against him, saying he accepted Bhushan’s admission, and did not want him to be punished.
In the same case, however, Bhushan had sought the recusal of Justice Arun Mishra from hearing the contempt case. When Justice Arun Mishra refused to recuse himself and sought his unconditional apology for seeking his recusal, Bhushan declined.
Rather than close the proceedings following Venugopal’s request, the Arun Mishra bench kept it alive,