Attorney General KK Venugopal has granted his consent for initiating criminal contempt proceedings against stand up comedian Kunal Kamra for his alleged "derogatory" tweets against a Supreme Court judge. Venugopal's consent for contempt proceedings against Kamra came after a law student and two advocates wrote a letter to him seeking permission for the same.
Kamra faces contempt charges over a series of tweets criticizing the Supreme Court for granting TV anchor Arnab Goswami interim bail on Wednesday.
"I find that today people believe they can boldly and brazenly condemn the Supreme Court and its judges by exercising what they believe is their freedom of speech. But under the Constitution, the freedom of speech is subject to the law of contempt and I believe that it is time people understand that attacking the Supreme Court of India unjustifiedly and brazenly will attract punishment under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1972," the Venugopal said in his consent letter.
"I, therefore, grant consent to proceed by way of initiating contempt proceedings against Kunal Kamra," he added.
Venugopal said that the tweets are highly objectionable, and it would perhaps be for the court to decide the question as to whether these tweets also would constitute criminal contempt of the Supreme Court.
The complaint letter had said that Kamra made an unsavory comment on Justice DY Chandrachud and circulation of a morphed image of the Supreme Court premises.
Kunal Kamra has put out multiple tweets since yesterday, raging over the Supreme Court granting interim bail to Republic TV's Arnab Goswami a week after his arrest over the suicide of an architect, Anvay Naik, and his mother in 2018. A two-judge bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee pulled up the Maharashtra government over the journalist's arrest and said: "If we as a constitutional court do not lay down law and protect liberty, then who will?"
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