The Supreme Court will take up three petitions seeking contempt of court action against comedian Kunal Kamra on December 17, the Hindustan Times reported on Monday.
The case against Kamra relates to a series of tweets he put out criticising the Supreme Court for the manner in which it had fast-tracked Republic TV owner Arnab Goswami’s bail plea, even as thousands of undertrials languishing in jails across the court find it difficult to get a hearing.
Various people immediately sent letters to Attorney General KK Venugopal asking for permission to prosecute Kamra for contempt of court. The attorney general gave his go ahead on November 12, after which petitions have been moved before the Supreme Court seeking contempt action.
Less than 10 days later, the attorney general gave approval for another set of contempt proceedings against the comedian for a tweet directed at Chief Justice of India SA Bobde.
Kamra has maintained that he would not retract his tweets criticising the Supreme Court or apologise. “No lawyers, no apology, no fine, no waste of space,” Kamra said on Twitter.
In the past few months, there have been several instances when contempt of court proceedings have been initiated against eminent personalities, prompting debate about the perceived partiality of the Supreme Court.
On December 1, Venugopal had granted consent to a law student to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Sanitary Panels creator Rachita Taneja, also for tweets against the judiciary for granting bail to Goswami.
Venugopal said her tweets were not just an “audacious assault and insult to the institution”, but also made a “clear implication” that the Supreme Court is biased towards the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. On December 7, the law student, Aditya Kashyap, filed a petition in the court against Taneja in the case.
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