Judgment

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J.:- Asharam M. Jain sought special leave of this court under Art. 136 of the Constitution to appeal against the order of the High Court of Maharashtra in Notice of Motion No. 859 of 1982. The petition for special leave to appeal ran to 84 pages and at the foot of the petition, it was stated "drawn and filed by B. P. Maheshwari & Co., Advocates for the petitioner". Asharam M. Jain filed an affidavit along with the special leave petition affirming that the statement of facts in paragraphs 1 to 67 in the petition for special leave to appeal were true to his knowledge and belief and based on the record of the lower court. In several paragraphs of the special leave petition, Asharam M. Jain indulged in wild and vicious diatribe against the then Chief Justice of the High Court of Maharashtra. To illustrate the limits of the invective, we wish to refer to but one paragraph of the petition. In paragraph 26 of the petition, it was stated by Asharam M. Jain,

"The petitioner says that having found that they would no longer be justified in continuing to hear the Notice of Motion and appeal for the several true facts set out in the Transfer Application and the affidavits made by the petitioner and briefly hereinabove set about, the learned Chief Justice tried by the said Order to harm the petitioner asmuch as he could and made totally false and wrong observations quite unworthy of the head of the judiciary of the State of Maharashtra, and His Lordship Mr. Justice Pendse supported the learned Chief Justice. The said Order, it is clear, has been made with the sole and dishonest object of causing prejudice in the minds of the Judges of the new Bench against the petitioner and depriving the Judges of the new Bench of their right to independently judicially decide the Notice of Motion on merits, and which is proved by subsequent events"

When the special leave petition was heard on April 27, 1983 by this court, the outrageous allegations made against the Chief Justice and the other learned Judge of the High Court of Maharashtra were noticed and two of us (A. P. Sen and E. S. Venkataramiah, JJ.) made the following order :

"The special leave petition is dismissed. Our attention is drawn to paragraphs 6, 10, 11, 13, 16, 19, 20, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 34, 38, 39, 42, 50, 57, 60, 62 and grounds 5(v), (x), 7 to 10, (Z), (mm), (tt), (uu) of the special leave petition. The learned Judges have also in the course of the order made reference to the conduct of the petitioner in casting aspersions on the former Chief Justice. Issue notice for contempt to the petitioner why he should not be committed for contempt under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971".

In answer to the notice issued to Asharam M. Jain, he appeared before tile court on July 25, 1983 when the following order was made :

"Shri Garg, appears along with the contemner. He prays for two weeks time to file an affidavit and states on instruction that his client is not prepared to withdraw the allegations but wants to make amends. He is allowed two weeks time to file an affidavit.

"Issue notice to the Attorney-General for India requesting him to appear and assist the court in the case. The Registry shall furnish a copy of the special leave petition and the show cause notice to the learned Attorney-General.

"The matter be listed on August 22, 1983. The contemner shall remain present in the court on that date".

2. When the matter was taken up for hearing on August 22, 1982, Shri R. K. Garg placed before us an affidavit, said to contain the sincere and unconditional apology of Asharam M. Jain and stated that the contemner was placing himself at the mercy of the court. He submitted that the court should be so gracious as to accept the unqualified apology tendered by the contemner and refrain from sending the contemner to prison. He invited our attention to In Re: Shri S. Mulgaokar (1978) 3 SCR 162 where Krishna Iyer, J. suggested that a normative guideline for the judges to observe in this j