Attorney General (AG) of India K K Venugopal recently declined a request for consent to initiate criminal contempt of court proceedings against Senior Advocate and Member of Parliament Kapil Sibal for certain remarks that he made during a speech on the subject of “Judicial Rollback of Civil Liberties” on August 6, 2022.
Key highlights
- Article 129 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power to initiate contempt cases on its own, independent of the motion brought before it by the AG or with the consent of the AG.
- In 1961, a committee headed by H.N. Sanyal, an Additional Solicitor General for the Government of India, was appointed to examine the application of contempt laws in India. Pursuant to this report, the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, was passed.
- According to The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be civil contempt or criminal contempt.
- Civil contempt means “wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court, or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court”.
- Criminal contempt, on the other hand, is attracted by the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which: scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court.
- Fair and accurate reporting of judicial proceedings will not amount to contempt of court.
- Any fair criticism on the merits of a judicial order after a case is heard and disposed of will not amount to contempt of court.
- In the case of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General or the Solicitor General, and in the case of High Courts, the Advocate General, may bring in a motion before the court for initiating a case of criminal contempt.
- The contempt motion can be brought by a private citizen as well — and in such a case, the consent of the Attorney General (or the Advocate General, as the case may be,) is required.
