Bollywood actor Swara Bhasker who keeps attracting spotlight for her criticism against the BJP-led Central government has now found herself in the middle of a possible contempt of court.
A petition was filed before the Supreme Court on Monday seeking criminal initiation of contempt of court against the actor for her remark criticising the top court over its historic Ram Mandir verdict.
The plea has been filed by Usha Shetty from Karanataka before Attorney General of India, KK Venugopal for his permission to begin the proceedings case in court.
The petition has been filed by advocates Anuj Saxena, Prakash Sharma and Mehak Maheswari. Notably, one of the lawyers is Maheswari – the complainant in the Prashant Bhushan case.
Their plea invokes Section 15 of the Contempts of Courts Act, 1971 read with Rule 3 of Contempt proceedings of the Supreme Court, 1975 to seek the sanction from the AGI before the apex court can hear the petition.
The petitioners have alleged that Swara disrespected the court by saying that “courts are not sure if they believe in the constitution”. On February 1, the actor had attended a panel discussion organised by NGO Mumbai Collective during the peak of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests on the topic ‘Artists against Communalism’. During the discussion, Bhasker, as alleged by the petitioner, said: “We are now in a situation where our courts are not sure whether they believe in the Constitution or not…We are living in a country where the Supreme Court of our country states in a judgment that the demolition of Babri Masjid was unlawful and in the same judgment rewards the same people who brought down the mosque.”
“…We are now in a situation where our courts are not sure whether they believe in the constitution or not,” she had said.
In this backdrop, the petition has stated: “The alleged contemnor (Bhaskar) statements intends to incite feeling of no-confidence amongst the public with respect to the proceedings of the Hon’ble Court and integrity of the Hon’ble Judges of the Apex Court of India.”
Swara has not commented on the matter yet.
Notably, on August 14, Supreme Court had initiated contempt of court proceedings against advocate Prashant Bhushan for his tweets posted in June. Bhushan, in his tweets, had commented on an undeclared emergency and the Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde. The court will hear a separate hearing on August 20 to decide his punishment for the same.