N Ram & Co petition was actually clever move of saying since Contempt Of Court is under challenge so please refrain from passing any orders in Bhushan's case. That ploy was foiled by Supreme Court. Ths judgement on Contempt tommorrow makes their plea infructious.
Since Bhushan has refused to apologise to Court on his tweets scandalising judges & court. I expect Court to hold him guilty for Contempt of Court make him tender unconditional public apology as well as debar/suspend his license of practicising in Courts for some time.
The SC could very well also define the fine line of criticising judgements on points of law & facts and scandalising Judges personally of bias etc as is the law passed by PARLIAMENT in 1971 that still stands on statute book.
There is a fine difference between meritorious criticism of judgements and outright scandalization of Judiciary what Bhushan was doing is latter through his public statements & tweets through which he was bringing disrepute to judiciary.
Contempt of Court Act is totally needed it not only involves Scandalising Judiciary but also willful disobedience of order of Court. So many times Courts have invoked these powers when people refuse to obey order of Courts in civil/commercial matters. We have used it too.
Contempt of Court also protects majesty of law coz without it anyone will start abusing & criticising courts and no one will obey or enforce its orders. That will lead to disorder & anarchy. Contempt powers like in Bhushan case is sparingly used & its rare exceptional case.
Judiciary welcomes criticism of judgements on merits, also there is provision of review for error apparent on record but if you get personal with judges then you cross that line like some did with Justice Muralidhar some time back & now CJI here. Liberals were quiet in RW cases.
Now liberals are frouthing on Contempt. When Gurumurthy & Co got contempt notices by HC on comments on Justice Muralidhar & his wife they were all quiet. Bloody hypocrites !!
