Contempt case against Manoj Tiwari dropped
The misplaced bravado of Manoj Tiwari and his chest thumping immediately after the hearing on October 3 (contempt case) and making serious but frivolous allegations against the monitoring committee appointed by this court is a clear indication of how low he can stoop and display his total lack of respect for any rule of law. SUPREME COURT BENCH
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday refrained from initiating contempt proceedings against BJP Member of Parliament Manoj Tiwari, even as it held that he did “take the law into his own hands” by breaking or tampering the government seal on a building, which was being used illegally.
Tiwari had broken the seal on a residential building in Gokalpuri where a dairy was being run illegally. The premises had been sealed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation. The civic body filed a complaint against the BJP MP and the Sc-appointed monitoring committee petitioned the court for initiating contempt proceedings against him.
The SC bench comprising justices MB Lokur and Deepak Gupta condemned Tiwari for defending his action, and advised him to desist from acting on the “instructions of the mob and commit an offence”. The judges left it to the BJP to “punish” him.
“The misplaced bravado of Manoj Tiwari and his chest thumping immediately after the hearing on October 3 (contempt case) and making serious but frivolous allegations against the monitoring committee appointed by this court is a clear indication of how low he can stoop and display his total lack of respect for any rule of law,” the judges said.
“It seems that he is, in a sense, a rebel without a cause. The shoulders of this court and the monitoring committee are broad enough to take criticism in its stride and, therefore, we do not intend to proceed against Manoj Tiwari for the reckless statement attributed to him as publicised by the media department of the political party,” the judges said.
“We are extremely pained by the machismo and brazen manner in which Manoj Tiwari took the law into his own hands and broke or tampered with the seal. We are pained because Manoj Tiwari is an elected MP and hopefully a responsible citizen of Delhi. Should an elected representative of the people defy the rule of law in this manner?” the judges wrote, while closing the contempt proceedings that began after the monitoring committee sought action against the lawmaker.
The panel, supervising the sealing drive in Delhi, had, in its report, said that Tiwari had broken the seal on September 16.
Tiwari defended his action on the ground that as an elected MP he was answerable to the people and accused the committee of running some sort of a “racket” to seal select premises, while not taking action against other illegal structures. The MP said he had broken the seal to calm down an agitated mob which had gathered at the spot.
The bench called his reasoning “shocking”. “If a mob goads an elected MP to commit a far more serious offence, would it mean that the elected representative would act on the instructions of the mob and commit the offence? A large number of such situations can arise on a day-to-day basis and it is disconcerting to note that an elected member of a responsible political party can succumb to pressure from a mob rather than require the mob to follow the rule of law.”
A person convicted under the Contempt of Courts Act 1971 can be jailed for up to six months and fined, but in the present case the apex court did not take any punitive action against the Parliamentarian, despite passing stinging remarks on his conduct.