Prashant Bhushan Challenges Supreme Court Against Re 1 Fine Over His Tweets

Bhushan, who had accepted the fine against the imprisonment of three months for his dissenting tweets against Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, had asserted that he did not accept the verdict.

New Delhi: Activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan on Thursday filed a petition in Supreme Court seeking review of the August 31 judgement against the contempt case in which the court slapped a Re 1 fine on him.

Bhushan, who had accepted the fine against the imprisonment of three months for his dissenting tweets against Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, had asserted that he did not accept the verdict.

“Just because I’m paying the fine does not mean I have accepted the verdict. We are filing a review plea today. We have filed a writ petition that there must be an appeal procedure created for conviction under contempt,” Bhushan told the media before submitting the fine. He and his lawyer also filed a review petition on September 14.

The activist-lawyer had earlier said his tweets were not intended in any way to disrespect the Supreme Court or the judiciary, but they were an expression of his anguish at what he felt was the court’s deviation from its sterling record.

A bench headed by Justice (retired) Arun Mishra asked Bhushan to deposit the fine by September 15, failing which he would have attracted a jail term of three months and debarment from law practice for three years.

Bhushan in his statement had refused to offer an apology to the Supreme Court for the tweets, saying what he had expressed represented his bona fide belief which he continued to hold.

Notably, the 63-year-old lawyer was held for two tweets – the first, posted on June 27, where he alleged that the last four Chief Justices had played a role in the “destruction of democracy” during undeclared “emergency” for the last six years; and the second, posted on June 29, in which he criticised the “present Chief Justice” SA Bobde for riding a bike in Nagpur “while keeping the apex court in lockdown and denying citizens their right to access to justice”.