Attorney General K K Venugopal on Thursday gave his consent for the initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra for his tweets following the Supreme Court’s decision to grant interim bail to television anchor Arnab Goswami.
Granting permission to initiate contempt proceedings, the Attorney General said that the tweets were not only in bad taste but also crossed the line between humour and contempt of the court.
Attorney General KK Venugopal today gave his consent to eight people who want to sue Kunal Kamra for criminal contempt.
“It is time that people understand attacking the Supreme Court unjustifiably and brazenly will lead to punishment,” Mr Venugopal said in his response to their request.
In one of the letters seeking Attorney General’s consent for initiation of contempt proceedings against Kamra, three lawyers have claimed that he allegedly attempted to lower the authority of the Supreme Court of India through his tweets after the apex court had granted interim bail to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.
“Apart from this, is a picture of the Supreme Court building dressed in saffron colours with a flag of the ruling political party, namely the BJP having replaced the Tricolour. This is a gross insinuation against the entirety of the Supreme Court of India that the Supreme Court of India is not an independent and impartial institution and so too its judges, but on the other hand is a Court of the ruling party, the BJP existing for the BJP’s benefit. All this in my opinion constitutes criminal contempt of Court,” further added the letter.
Kunal Kamra has put out multiple tweets targeting the Supreme Court and judges since Wednesday.