New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to advocate Prashant Bhushan in a contempt petition moved by the Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and the Centre for his tweets in the case challenging appointment of M. Nageshwar Rao as interim Director of CBI.
A Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Navin Sinha issued notice after hearing Attorney General Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre and posted the matter for further hearing on March 7.
Mr Bhushan, who was appearing for the petitioner Common Cause, tweeted that he spoke to Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, who denied any discussion having taken place in the High-Powered committee regarding the appointment of Nageswar Rao as interim Director. Thus, the government appeared to have misled the court, Mr Bhushan stated in his tweet. Mr Venugopal refer-red to the statements ma-de by Mr Bhushan on Twi-tter and said that Mr Bhu-shan chose to go online with the statements inste-ad of coming to the court.
He said, “An end has to be put. You are going public in a pending matter. I don’t want any punishment against my friend, Mr Bhushan, but there has to be a decision on larger issues.
While issuing notice Justice Arun Mishra observed, “Earlier lawyers desisted from speaking publicly about matters they appeared in. Now everyday, we find that in pending matters, a lawyer who argues here goes out and criticises others.”
