Intemperate telegram amounts to contempt: SC

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 15. The Supreme Court has given a new dimension to the scope of contempt law by holding that even sending an intemperate telegram to a judge which would ``scandalise and lower the authority of the court'' will fall within the ambit of contempt.

A Bench comprising Mr. Justice K.T. Thomas and Mr. Justice R.P. Sethi rejected the contention of Mr. R. Karuppan, counsel for the contemnor advocate, Mr. S.K. Sundaram that sending a telegram (on November 3) would not amount to contempt as there was no publication.

Speaking for the Bench, Mr. Justice Thomas reiterated the position that ``the contempt of court jurisdiction is not exercised to protect the dignity of an individual Judge, but to protect the administration of justice from being maligned''.

The Bench held that ``the impugned action of the contemnor is a case of gross criminal contempt of court. It is a serious matter for this court because vilification of the high personage of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) would undermine the majesty of the court and dignity of this institution'', the Bench said.

Mr. Justice Thomas said that the telegram contained four biddings: a command hurled at the CJI to step down forthwith; a threat to file a criminal complaint against the CJI if the command was not obeyed; to file a writ petition for a direction that the CJI should pay Rs. 3 crores to the government and an imputation that Dr. Justice Anand was a usurper in the office of the CJI.

The Judge pointed out that the ``CJI by virtue of his Constitutional ranking is the head of the Indian judiciary. When threats of the above nature have been hurled at him they would unmistakably tend to undermine the position, majesty and dignity of the courts and the law''.

Referring to the contention that there was no publication, the Bench said when the contemnor appended a copy of the telegram in his criminal complaint, he had made it public at his own volition. On the contention that it was done in good faith, the Bench said when the age issue of Dr. Justice Anand had already been decided by the President on weighty and formidable materials, the telegraphic communication and the criminal complaint launched by him ``smacks of utter lack of bona fides''.

The Bench was of the view that ``once the age of Dr. Justice Anand was so determined by the President in exercise of his Constitutional authority, in whom alone is the power reposed to determine the question of the age of a High Court judge, it was not open to the contemnor to raise this question over again and again''.

On the contemnor's plea to drop the proceedings, the Bench observed ``if the contemnor had stopped with his telegram we would have persuaded ourselves to ignore it as a case of ranting gibberish. But when he followed it up with lodging of a criminal complaint before a criminal court in which the CJI was arrayed as an accused having committed offences of cheating, criminal breach of trust and falsification of records, we realised that he seriously meant to malign and undermine the dignity and authority of this court''.

The Bench, while convicting the contemnor and sentenced him to six months imprisonment for having committed contempt of court, however, suspended the sentence taking into consideration his health condition and that he was a heart patient.

The Judges placed on record their gratitude to the Solicitor General, Mr. Harish N. Salve, for assisting the court in this case. A copy of the judgment would be forwarded to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and the Bar Council of India for information, they said.

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