VERY IMPORTANT POINT
Benefit of doubt is given to respondent Nos. 1 and 2 because of procedural defects in contempt petition and explanation given in their affidavits. Respondent No. 3 is also not liable on defective contempt petition but as she has made an affidavit imputing motives to specific Courts for entertaining litigation or passing orders against her, she appears prima facie to have committed contempt for which Apex Court directed that notice in prescribed form be issued to her to show cause why she should not be proceeded against for contempt for the averments in the three paragraphs of the affidavit set out in this judgment.

Headnote:(i) Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 -Sections 5, 14, 15, 23-Supreme Court Rules on contempt u/s 23-Rules 3(b), 4(a)-Constitution of India-Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(2), 129 and 142-Criminal contempt petition by five Petitioner Advocates against 3 respondents (an advocate, Narmada Bachao Andolan Leader Megha Patkar and Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy) for raising slogans against judiciary during a dharna outside Supreme Court on 30.12.2000 agitating against Court s judgment raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam-Substantive law of criminal contempt? (No)-Fair criticism of Court judgment whether contempt? (No)-To ascribe motives to Judge whether contempt? (Yes). (Paras 11 to 19)
       (ii) Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 -Section 23-Supreme Court Rules under it-Contempt Petition (Crl.) not drafted according to Rules nor verified by affidavits of all petitioners- Registry listing it for hearing without getting it rectified-Whether liable to be rejected ? (Yes).
       Held : This brings us to the present proceedings. Learned counsel for the respondent No.2 was correct when he submitted that the petition was shabbily drafted and procedurally grossly defective. In fact almost every one of the Rules framed by this Court have been violated. Rule 4(a) directs that every petition under Rule 3(b) or (c) shall contain -
        (i) the name, description and place of residence of the petitioner or petitioners and of the persons charged;
       It is, therefore, mandatory that the places of residence of both the petitioners and the respondents are given. Yet each of the five persons named as petitioners has given the Bar Library or the Lawyers Chamber as his address. The non-compliance with Rule 4(a) is more shocking when it comes to the Respondents. The respondent No.1 s address has been given as his chamber. The respondent No.2 has been described as "Leader Narmda (sic) Bachao Andolan" and the Respondent No. 3 as the Booker Prize Winner . Both, their addresses have been given as C/o the respondent No.1 at his legal chambers in the premises of this Court. A more serious flaw is the verification of the petition. Rule 4(b) requires that "The petition shall be supported by an affidavit. There are five named petitioners yet except for the petitioner No.1 no one else has either signed the petition or affirmed it. Again under Rule 3 like Section 15 of the Act, the Court may take action in cases of criminal contempt either
        (a) suo motu ; or
        (b) on a petition made by Attorney-General, or Solicitor General; or
        (c) on a petition made by any person, and in the case of a criminal contempt with the consent in writing of the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General.
       Rule 5 provides that only petitions under Rules 3(b) and (c) shall be posted before the Court for preliminary hearing and for orders as to issue of notice. It is clear from Rule 5 that the matter could have been listed before this Court by the Registry as a petition for admission only if the Attorney General or Solicitor General had granted his consent. In this case, the Attorney General had specifically declined to deal with the matter and it does not appear that any request was made to the Solicitor General to give his consent. Of course, this Court could have taken suo motu cognizance had the petitioners prayed for it. They had not. [See P.N. Duda v. P. Shiv Shankar, 1988(3) SCC 167]. Even if they had, it is doubtful whether the Court would have acted on the statements of the petitioners had the petitioners been candid enough to have disclosed that the police had refused to take cognizance of their complaint. In any event the power to act suo motu in matters which otherwise require the Attorney General to initiate proceedings or at least give his consent must be exercised rarely. Courts normally reserve this exercise to cases where it either derives information from its own sources, such as from a perusal of the records, or on reading a report in a newspaper or hearing a public speech or a document which would speak for itself. Otherwise sub-section (1) of Section 15 might be rendered otiose. S.K. Sarkar v. V.C. Misra [1981(1) SCC 436]. When a matter is listed before the Court, the Court assumes that the formalities in connection with the filing have been scrutinized by the Registry of this Court that the proper procedure has been followed as it is the duty of the Registry to scrutinise the petition to see whether it is in order before placing it before the Court for consideration. There is no occasion for this Court to assume the task of the Registry before considering the merits of each matter. Had our attention been drawn to the procedural defects, we would have had no hesitation in rejecting the application in limine on this ground alone. (Paras 23 to 28)
       (iii) Contempt Petition (Crl.) against an advocate, Megha Patkar and Arunadhati Roy-All are filing affidavits in response to notice-Affidavits of respondent 1 and respondent 2 giving explanation which prima facie showing no contempt was committed-Affidavit of respondent 3 found contemptous-Proper course-First two respondents given benefit of doubt-Show cause notice given to respondent No. 3.
       Held : The allegations of shouting of abusive slogans cannot be accepted merely on the basis of the statements in this petition. The procedural flaws in the petition, as noted earlier are not mere technicalities. They are as vital to the acceptability of the petition and its contents. Where there is no other legally admissible evidence before the Court and the only material which the Court can take into account are the statements contained in the petition, the petition assumes a particular importance. Apart from the defective nature of the petition, the unexplained reluctance on the part of the four petitioners to affirm an affidavit verifying the facts contained in the petition, the failure to even attempt to obtain the consent of the Solicitor General and most importantly the refusal of the police station to record an FIR on the basis of the complaint lodged by the petitioner No. 1 are telling circumstances against the case in the petition. Admittedly, the police personnel were present at the time of the incident. Their refusal to record the FIR on the petitioner s complaint is, therefore, significant. We have also noted that there is no allegation in the complaint that the respondents 1 and 2 had shouted defamatory statements against the Court. On the other hand, we have the three affidavits filed by the respondents where the respondent Nos. 1 and 3 have categorically denied on oath that they shouted any slogans and the respondent No. 2 has denied shouting any slogan which could be termed as contumacious. There is no reason why their statements should be rejected. In the circumstances, we are not prepared to direct any further enquiry into the matter by requiring parties to lead evidence, particularly when the statements in the complaint filed by the petitioners are materially discrepant with the allegations in the petition. This should have concluded the matter in favour of the respondents - had it not been for the statements made in the affidavits of respondents Nos. 2 and 3 which we have quoted earlier. There can be no doubt that the filing of an affidavit is publication within the definition of criminal contempt. An affidavit is not a secret document. It forms part of the Court records and is available to and accessible by the public. The question is whether the statements made in the affidavits of the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 could be termed to be fair criticism or do the comments impute improper motives to those taking part in the administration of justice? Respondent No. 2 has spoken generally of the superior Courts using the power of contempt against persons who have been criticising the Courts and their judgments. According to the respondent No. 2 s counsel, this reaction was in response to a statement in the petition which appeared to the respondent No. 2 to be one of the bases for issuing the notice against her. It is true that the notice did not specify the contumacious acts with which the respondent was charged in terms of Rule 6 read with Form I. Only a copy of the petition had been served on the respondents along with the notice. It would not be unreasonable for the respondent No. 2 to assume that every statement contained in the petition formed part of the charge. In the petition, it has been stated that "the Hon ble Judges of the Supreme Court are pious constitutional authority and are not open for public and press to criticize, comment, shout defamatory and derogatory slogans against its verdict". Apart from the shouting of defamatory slogans, the rest of the sentence does not in fact correctly state the law. As we have said earlier, Courts like any other institution do not enjoy immunity from criticism as long as the criticism is fair, reasonable and temperate and does not accuse Judges of discharging their duties for improper motives or on extraneous considerations. [See Rustom Cawasjee Cooper v. Union of India AIR 1970 SC 1318; Perspective Publications (P) Ltd. v. The State of Maharashtra AIR 1971 SC 221, and Rama Dayal Markarha v. State of Madhya Pradesh AIR 1978 SC 921]. No personal motive has been ascribed by the respondent No. 2 to any particular Judge. Her comments are general in nature and may be construed as the expression of a perceived error in the decisions of superior Courts in their contempt jurisdiction. Therefore, according to the standards of fair criticism noted earlier and giving the respondent No. 2 the benefit of the doubt, we do not intend to take any further action against respondent No. 2 for her comments regarding the superior Courts in her affidavit. However, the respondent No. 3 appears to us, prima-facie, to have committed contempt. She has imputed motives to specific Courts for entertaining litigation or passing orders against her. She has accused Courts of harassing her (of which the present proceeding has been cited as an instance) as if the judiciary were carrying out a personal vendetta against her. She has brought in matters which were not only not pertinent to the issues to be decided but has drawn uninformed comparisons to make statements about this Court which do not appear to be protected by the law relating to fair criticism. We are conscious that the respondent No. 3 has said before us that she stood by the comments made even if they were held to be contumacious. At the same time, we are also aware that when the statement was made, the respondent had not been called on formally to defend herself against this charge. The prescribed procedure will have to be followed. For the aforementioned reasons, while dismissing the proceedings initiated on the basis of the petition against all three respondents, we direct that notice in the prescribed form be issued to the respondent No. 3 as to why the respondent No. 3 should not be proceeded against for contempt for the statements in the three paragraphs of her affidavit set out earlier in this judgment. (Paras 32 to 38)

JUDGMENT

Ruma Pal, J.-The allegations in this contempt application relate to an incident which is alleged to have taken place on 30th December, 2000. According to the petition on that day, the respondents led a huge crowd and held a dharna in front of this Court and shouted abusive slogans against this Court including slogans ascribing lack of integrity and dishonesty to the Institution. This was done in the presence of the media. The petition alleges that the petitioners protested but were attacked and assaulted by the respondents who called them "brokers" of this Court. The petition goes on to state that that evening at 6.00 P.M. while the petitioners were watching the police officials trying to disperse the crowd, the respondents again attacked, abused and assaulted the petitioners. On the text day at 1.00 P.M. the petitioners lodged a complaint with the Tilak Marg, Police Station. A copy of the complaint has been annexed to the petition. According to the petition the dharna, slogan shouting and assault on the petitioners were designed to compel the Court to decide a pending application filed by the respondents before this Court in the respondent s favour.

2. Given the allegations in the petition that the respondents had incited a crowd by shouting slogans attacking the integrity of the Judges of this Court, notices were issued to the respondents of the application, so that they could give their version of the incident, if it had taken place at all.

3. Each of the three respondents have filed separate affidavits in response to the notice. All three respondents have admitted that there was a dharna outside the gates of this Court on 30th December, 2000. The dharna had been organized by the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the gathered crowd were persons who lived in the Narmada Valley and were aggrieved by the majority judgment of this Court relating to the building of the dam on the Narmada River.

4. As far as respondent No.1, is concerned, he has asserted that while he supported the cause and had espoused it by appearing as counsel before this Court, he did not approve of the holding of a dharna as a way of protesting against the judgment of this Court. He has denied that he took part in the dharna although, he says, he did nothing to stop it. He has also denied that he shouted any slogan against the Court nor did he assault, abuse or threaten any of the petitioners.

5. As far as respondent No. 2 is concerned, she has denied that any incident involving the petitioners, as alleged in the petition, had taken place and asserted that the allegations that the petitioners were threatened or abused or assaulted were false and fabricated. She has admitted participation in the dharna and also to have made speeches and raised slogans but has said that to her knowledge, no slogan was raised or speech made impugning the integrity of the Judges of this Court. She has sought to justify the holding of the dharna as a legitimate form of protest against the judgment which had been delivered by this Court in connection with the building of the dam on the Narmada river. Apart from giving the background of the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the merits of the case of the oustees whose case she represents, the respondent No. 2 has said in her affidavit:

"The Superior Courts have recently shown a disturbing tendency to use the power of contempt against persons who have been criticizing the Courts and their judgments. A judiciary which insulates itself from criticism by using the power of Contempt, is bound to insensitive to the people that it is meant to serve. This does not bode well for the future of our republic .............. I will continue to help them raise their voices in protest against this system even if I have to do so against the Judiciary and the Courts. I will continue to do so as long as I can, even if I have to be punished for contempt for doing that."

6. The respondent No. 3 also filed an affidavit in response to the notice. The resp

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2001 Supreme(SC) 1173

Cases Referred (9)