ACTIVISTS ‘DARE’ SC TO SLAP CONTEMPT CHARGES

TIMES NEWS NETWORK September 26, 2007

New : In a dramatic throwback to civil disobedience, over 30 prominent persons have decided to “court contempt” daring the judiciary to punish them along with Mid Day journalists for making allegations against former Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal.

Since the HC held that the publication of those allegations amounted to contempt and sentenced the journalists to four months of imprisonment, the group led by RTI campaigner announced on Tuesday that they would file an application before the Supreme Court reiterating the allegations and saying, “We plead guilty to the same charge of contempt and request this Hon’ble Court to sentence us to the same punishment.”

The application is due to be filed on Thursday, on the eve of the hearing of the appeal by the journalists against the HC verdict. The draft application said that unless it was reversed, the judgment was bound to send out a message that “if any judge indulged in any wrongdoing, the people of do not have a right to speak about it or demand an inquiry into it.”

Besides Kejriwal, those who are participating in this novel form of protest include Magsaysay awardees , and , former NAC member Jean Dreze, former bureaucrats Harsh Mander and S P Shukla, senior journalist Prabhash Joshi and an array of academics, doctors and social activists.

The meeting addressed by, among others, author-activist Arundhati Roy, advocate Prashant Bhushan and AIIMS professor Anoop Saraya, denounced the HC’s decision to convict the journalists (without going into the veracity of their allegations against ex-CJI) as ‘‘an assault on our freedom of speech and expression.’’

While acknowledging the service rendered by the judiciary in various spheres, including to protect the freedom of speech, the proposed application said that the HC verdict this month in the Mid Day case however ‘‘strikes at the found of our respect’’ for the courts.

Prashant Bhushan said that if the SC, instead of reversing the HC verdict, decides to throw the applicants behind bars along with Mid Day staffers, there will be many more who will commit the same offence of reiterating the allegations against Justice Sabharwal. and dare the apex court to sentence them as well.