Legal experts on Monday said the Supreme Court judgment punishing advocate Prashant Bhushan with a ₹1 fine is a worrisome precedent in contempt law.
Senior lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan found the contempt proceedings “unwarranted in principle, and therefore, judicial time on this case is unjustified in principle”.
Ms. Ramakrishnan said there is a “mind-boggling imbalance” between the ₹1 fine and the default punishment of three months in jail and three years’ disbarment.
Default punishment is a balanced notion limited by the nature of the fine. It is a substitute for non-payment of fine, she said.
“More importantly, disbarment is not a penalty that can be imposed without notice and due process as prescribed by a larger Bench judgment. What cannot be done at all can obviously not be done as a default punishment,” Ms. Ramakrishnan said.
Former Additional Solicitor General of India Biswajit Bhattacharya, however, said the court has shown grace in its verdict.
Mr. Bhattacharya invoked Section 67 of the Indian Penal Code to note that imprisonment exceeding two months cannot be imposed for failing to deposit a fine exceeding ₹1.
Ms. Ramakrishnan also said it was “strange” that the advice given by the Attorney-General and Mr. Bhushan's counsel, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, to let the matter rest with an advice for restraint in future did not appeal to the court.
