'I Don’t Intend To Retract My Tweets Or Apologise,' says Kunal Kamra On Contempt Charge

Stand-up comic Kunal Kamra on Friday said that he will not apologise to the Supreme Court for his recent tweets criticising the apex court. In a statement today, Kamra said, “All that I tweeted was from my view of the Supreme Court of India giving a partial decision in favour of a Prime Time Loudspeaker… I don’t intend to retract my tweets or apologise for them. I believe they speak for themselves.”

Kamra had criticised the Supreme Court for granting interim bail to Republic Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami in an abetment to suicide case on Wednesday. During the hearing, a bench headed by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Indrani Chatterjee noted that Bombay High Court had intervened in a matter of "personal liberty" in its refusal to grant bail to the Republic TV editor.

Kamra's tweets criticised Justice DY Chandrachud and circulated morphed images of the Supreme Court premises.

A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday seeking initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against stand-up comic Kunal Kamra for his alleged “scandalous tweets” against the apex court.

The plea was filed a day after Attorney General K K Venugopal granted consent for initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against Kamra, saying Kamra’s tweets were in “bad taste” and it is time that people understand that attacking the apex court brazenly will attract punishment under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1972.

The consent of either the Attorney General or the Solicitor General is necessary, under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, for initiating contempt proceedings against any person.

The petition, filed by five petitioners including law student Shrirang Katneshwarkar, has claimed scandalized” the apex court and “further lowered” its authority.

“The alleged contemnor (Kamra) has the following of 1.7 million people. The scandalous tweets of the alleged contemnor were seen by his followers and many of them retweeted the same,” the plea, filed through advocate Nishant R Katneshwarkar stated. The plea further alleged that when some persons tried to make Kamra aware about the concept of contempt of court, he was “rude, arrogant and unapologetic” and his conduct shows that he has “no regard” for the top court.

“This court, by showing magnanimity and grace had let off the contemnors in the past upon them tendering an apology. But the conduct of the alleged contemnor is so harsh that the alleged contemnor does not deserve any sympathy at the hands of this court even in case of tendering an apology. Citizens of this country strongly believe that the people like the alleged contemnor should not be spared at any cost,” the plea read.

Venugopal had on Thursday granted consent for initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against Kamra for his tweets.

“I have gone through each one of the tweets which you have annexed for consent to proceed by way of criminal contempt against Kunal Kamra. The tweets which I am extracting below are not only in bad taste but clearly cross the line between humour and contempt of the court,” the Attorney General had said in his letter to one of the applicants who had sought his consent for initiation of contempt proceedings against Kamra.