Of 2020 in Suo Motu Contempt Petition (Crl.) No
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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION Crl.M.P. NO. _______ OF 2020 IN SUO MOTU CONTEMPT PETITION (CRL.) NO. 1 OF 2020 IN THE MATTER OF: ARUNA ROY & ORS …Applicants/ Proposed Respondents AND IN THE MATTER OF: IN RE. PRASHANT BHUSHAN & ANR …Alleged Contemnors CrlMP. No. _______________ of 2020 - APPLICATION FOR IMPLEADMENT/INTERVENTION WITH CrlMP. No. ___________ of 2020 – APPLICATION FOR EXEMPTION FROM FILING A DULY ATTESTED AFFIDAVIT PAPER BOOK (FOR INDEX: KINDLY SEE INSIDE) ADVOCATE FOR APPLICANTS: Mr. PRASANNA S. S.No Particulars Page Nos. 1. I.A. No. _____ of 2020 1 - 29 Application for Impleadment/Intervention along with Affidavit 2. ANNEXURE-A-1 30 -31 The order of this Hon’ble Court dated 22.07.2020, issuing notice on the Suo Motu Contempt proceedings to the Attorney General for India and to the Alleged Contemnor Mr. Prashant Bhushan 3. ANNEXURE-A-2 32 - 33 A true copy of the tweet dated 28.06.2020 by twitter handle @SaketGokhale 4. ANNEXURE-A-3 34 - 37 A true copy of the Statement dt. 27.07.2020 5. ANNEXURE-A-4 38 - 41 A true copy of the article dated 30.07.2020 as it appeared on barandbench.com 6. ANNEXURE-A-5 42 - 46 A true copy of the article dated 27.07.2020 published in The Hindu written by Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court 7. ANNEXURE-A-6 A true copy of the article dated 27.07.2020 published in The 47 – 51 Hindu written by Mr. Sriram Panchu, Senior advocate of the Madras High Court 8. ANNEXURE-A-7 52 - 62 A true copy of the article dated 28.05.2020 titled “Justice Madan Lokur: Supreme Court Deserves an 'F' Grade For Its Handling of Migrants” published in The Wire by Justice M.B. Lokur, Former judge of this Hon’ble Court 9. ANNEXURE-A-8 63 - 67 A true copy of the article dated 25.05.2020, titled “Failing to perform as a constitutional court”, published in The Hindu by Justice A.P. Shah, Former Chief Justice of the High Courts at Delhi and Madras 10. I.A. No. _____ of 2020 Application for Exemption from filing duly attested Affidavit 11. Filing Memo 12. Vakalatnamas 1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION Crl.M.P. NO. _______ OF 2020 IN SUO MOTU CONTEMPT PETITION (CRL.) NO. 1 OF 2020 IN THE MATTER OF: 1. ARUNA ROY 2. JAYATI GHOSH 3. SHANTHA SINHA 4. E A S SARMA 2 5. P. SAINATH 6. TM KRISHNA 7. JAGDEEP S. CHHOKAR 8. ANJALI BHARDWAJ 9. PRABHAT PATNAIK 3 10. BEZWADA WILSON 11. NIKHIL DEY 12. DEB MUKHARJI 13. SANGAYYA RACHAYYA HIREMATH 14. PAUL DIVAKAR NAMALA 15. WAJAHAT HABIBULLAH 4 16. SYEDA HAMEED ...INTERVENTION APPLICANTS/PROPOSED RESPONDENTS/INTERVNORS AND IN THE MATTER OF: IN RE PRASHANT BHUSHAN & ANR. … ALLEGED CONTEMNORS APPLICATION FOR IMPLEADMENT/INTERVENTION To, THE HON’BLE CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA AND HIS COMPANION JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA THE HUMBLE APPLICATION OF THE APPLICANTS ABOVE MENTIONED MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH: 1. The Applicants are citizens of India. The people of India declared in the Preamble of the Constitution, which they gave unto themselves, their resolve to secure to all the citizens liberty of thought and expression. This resolve is reflected as a fundamental right of a citizen in Article 19(1)(a) 5 found in part III of the Constitution. The Applicants herein contend that the initiation of the instant contempt proceedings against the Alleged Contemnor No.1 Mr. Prashant Bhushan for expression of an opinion relating to the functioning of this Hon’ble Court, that a reasonable person can legitimately hold, is manifestly unjust and unconstitutional for violation of rights under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution – not just of the Alleged Contemnor Mr. Bhushan, but also of the wider public – insofar as it causes a chilling effect on the exercise of the right to free expression. The proper functioning and administration of courts, especially the higher judiciary, is crucial to maintain the Rule of Law and to protect and enforce the Fundamental Rights of the people guaranteed under our Constitution. The order of this Hon’ble Court dated 22.07.2020, issuing notice on the Suo Motu Contempt proceedings to the Attorney General for India and to the Alleged Contemnor Mr. Prashant Bhushan is annexed herewith and marked as ANNEXURE-A-1 (from Page 30 – 31) 2. The Applicants herein are members of civil society of varying backgrounds of fields of work. They are interested in the administration of justice and independent judiciary, and are of the considered view that the instant contempt proceedings would stifle the right of free speech and expression of not just the Alleged Contemnor No.1 but also of many citizens of this country. This Application for Impleadment/Intervention is filed in order to assist this Hon’ble Court on the questions of law and fact that arise in the instant case. This Application is an earnest and bona-fide attempt to sustain the perception & tradition of this Hon’ble Court as a progressive, deliberative and democratic institution. 3. This Hon’ble Court in Indirect Tax Practitioners Association v. R.K. Jain (2010) 8 SCC 281, observed that “Fair criticism of the system of administration of justice or functioning of institutions or authorities entrusted with the task of deciding rights of the parties 6 gives an opportunity to the operators of the system/institution to remedy the wrong and also bring about improvements. Such criticism cannot be castigated as an attempt to scandalize or lower the authority of the Court or other judicial institutions or as an attempt to interfere with the administration of justice except when such criticism is ill motivated or is construed as a deliberate attempt to run down the institution or an individual Judge is targeted for extraneous reasons. Ordinarily, the Court would not use the power to punish for contempt for curbing the right of freedom of speech and expression, which is guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.”; and further quoted in approval the observations in Baradakanta Mishra v. Registrar of Orissa High Court (1974) 1 SCC374, that “We are not subjects of a king but citizens of a republic and a blanket ban through the contempt power, stifling criticism of a strategic institution, namely, administration of Justice, thus forbidding the right to argue for reform of the judicial process and to comment on the performance of the judicial personnel through outspoken or marginally excessive criticism of the instrumentalities of law and justice, may be a tall order. For, change through free speech is basic to our democracy, and to prevent change through criticism is to petrify the organs of democratic Government. The judicial instrument is no exception. To cite vintage rulings of English Courts and to bow to decisions of British Indian days as absolutes is to ignore the law of all laws that the rule of law must keep pace with the Rule of life.” (Emphasis Supplied) 4. Brief profiles of the Applicants herein is as follows. i. That the Applicant no. 1, Aruna Roy, is a social & democratic activist. She was a part of the Indian Administrative Services from 1968 to 1975. She resigned to work directly with people not merely for their rights to access services, but to claim the constitutional rights of equality and justice. Led by Aruna Roy in 1987, after two intense local struggles for land and minimum wages, the workers and peasants formed the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan in 1990. The MKSS and its collective campaigning helped ensure the passage of the Right to Information (RTI) Law and National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA, now MGNREGA) by the Indian Parliament in 2005. From 2004 – 2006, she was a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC), set up by the UPA Government, chaired by Sonia Gandhi. She joined the second NAC set up in 2010, as a member from 2010-2013. Apart from her 7 involvement with campaigns for the rights to information and work she has spoken out against attacks on religious minorities and the right to free speech and expression. She was a member of the ‘Concerned Citizens Tribunal’, which investigated the organized violence and killing of innocent people in the state of Gujarat, India in 2002. She has published extensively on the rights to information, right to work, civil liberties, minority rights, free speech and the right to dissent. ii. That the Applicant no. 2, Jayati Ghosh, is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research areas include globalization, international trade and finance, employment patterns, macroeconomic policy, gender issues, poverty and inequality. She has authored and/or edited 18 books and nearly 200 scholarly articles, most recently Informal Women Workers in the Global South (Routledge, forthcoming 2020); Demonetization Decoded: A critique of India’s monetary experiment (with CP Chandrasekhar and Prabhat Patnaik, Routledge 2017); the Elgar Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development (co-edited with Erik Reinert and Rainer Kattel, Edward Elgar 2016); and India and the International Economy, (Oxford University Press 2015). Her research output has been recognized through several national and international prizes, including the M. Adisheshaiah Award for distinguished contributions to the social sciences in India in 2015; the International Labour Organization’s Decent Work Research Prize for 2010; the NordSud Prize for Social Sciences 2010 of the Fondazione Pescarabruzzo, Italy; and Prizes from the Asiatic Society, Kolkata. She has co-chaired the Scientific Committee of the World Social Science Congress in 2018.