Earlier on Tuesday, the SC had updated its website that it has registered a suo moto contempt against senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai for tweeting against the top court.
The case was registered on a petition by Aastha Khurana, as reported by the Bar and Bench. (Source: IANS)
Just a few hours after the Supreme Court had registered a suo motu criminal contempt case against senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai on Tuesday for his August 2020 tweets allegedly criticising the judiciary, the court on late Tuesday evening clarified that it has not initiated any criminal contempt of court against Sardesai.
Earlier on Tuesday, the SC had updated its website that it has registered a suo moto contempt against senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai for tweeting against the top court.
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Though, on late Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court clarified that it has not initiated any criminal contempt of court against him.
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The case was registered on a petition by Aastha Khurana, as reported by the Bar and Bench.
The clarification from the top court came after news items were flashed on initiating suo moto criminal contempt proceeding against Sardesai by the top court on a petition by one Aastha Khurana.
“This is in context with news item being flashed in some news channels about initiating suo moto criminal contempt proceeding against Rajdeep Sardesai by Supreme court, it is made clear that no such proceeding has been initiated against Rajdeep Sardesai. However, status shown at Supreme Court website vide case no. SMC (Crl) 02/2021 has been placed inadvertently. Appropriate action to rectify the same is under process,” said a top court senior official.
Omprakash Parihar, Aastha Khurana’s advocate, while speaking to IANS said that the status of the case was uploaded on the top court website adding that this “mistake from the top court registry is unexplainable”.
Notably, Attorney General KK Venugopal had refused to initiate criminal proceedings against Rajdeep Sardesai on the basis of the same complaint in September last year.
According to Khurana’s lawyer, after the AG’s refusal, the petitioner filed a fresh petition in the top court, which was registered as criminal contempt case on February 13, this year, as per the top court website.
(With IANS inputs)
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