Judgement

BALAKRISHNA ERADI, J. : - By Criminal Miscellaneous Petition No. 944 of 1987 the petitioner has approached this Court with the prayer to revive a contempt petition which had been previously withdrawn by him on December 12, 1986. It is necessary to set out the previous history of these proceedings in order to understand the factual background against which the said prayer had been made.

2. The petitioner is the Secretary of an association of individuals called the "Conscientious Group". He filed contempt petition No. 4210 of 1986 alleging that the conduct of the first respondent in making certain adverse comments about the Judges who delivered the judgment of this Court in Civil Appeal No. 860 of 1986 (National Anthem Case) constitutes criminal contempt and that the first respondent as well as respondents Nos. 2 to 5 who were responsible for publishing the said statement in certain newspapers should be punished by taking action against them under S. 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act (70 of 1971) read with Rules framed by this Court for regulating the proceedings taken under the Act for contempt of this Court. When the said petition came tip before a Bench of this Court on September 26, 1986, the Bench directed issue notice to respondent No. 1 returnable on October 44, 1986. The order passed by the Bench was in the following terms :-

Issue notice to the first respondent only, returnable on 14th October, 1986, in regard to the following statement alleged to have been made by the first respondent as reported in the issue of "Indian Express" dated 15th September, 1986 in its Dak Edition.

Mr. Mohammed Yunus, Chairman, Trade Fair Authority of India said here that the Supreme Court Judge who held that the singing of the National Anthem was not compulsory had no right to be called either an Indian or a Judge."

3. Notice of the petition was accordingly issued to the first respondent. When the matter subsequently came up before a Bench of three Judges consisting of Bhagwati C.J. Oza, J. and K. N. Singh, J., the contemnor filed a reply raising the objection that the petition was not maintainable inasmuch as the petitioner had not obtained the consent in writing of the Attorney General as required by S. 15 of the Act. According to the averment contained in para 2 of the petition now filed before us, the petitioner was directed by the Division Bench by order dated December 3, 1986 to move the Attorney General for his consent and the petition was adjourned to December 12, 1986 for that purpose. The Attorney General on being moved by the petitioner for the grant of consent sent a reply to the petitioner stating that since he was himself a party in his capacity as Attorney General in the National Anthem case, it was not appropriate for him to deal with the petitioners application and hence the application was being returned to the petitioner. When the case later on came up before the same three Judge Bench. on December 12, 1986, the fact that such a reply had been received from the Attorney General seems to have been brought to the notice of the learned Judges, whereupon the Bench passed the following order :-

"Mr. Birla states that in view of the fact that the Attorney General has stated that he is not in a position to consider this matter for the time being since he is a petitioner in the National Anthem Case, he applies for leave to withdraw. Hence the Crl. M.P. is allowed to be withdrawn with liberty to him to refile the application after obtaining consent of the Attorney General as soon as the National Anthem case is over. While allowing the application to be withdrawn, we must express our view that every one is entitled to criticise the Judgement of the Court but no one should attack the Judges who delivered the Judgment as that denigrates the judicial institution and in the long term impairs the democratic process. That is something which must be avoided at all costs."

4. Subsequently, the petitioner filed Criminal Miscellaneous Petit