New delhi
India’s top court on Monday imposed a symbolic fine of one rupee ($0.0136) on a prominent lawyer found guilty of criminal contempt for posts on Twitter that were critical of senior judges, which he declined to apologise for.
A three-member bench of the Supreme Court said that lawyer Prashant Bhushan must pay the fine by Sept 15, failing to which he could be imprisoned for three months and barred from practice for three years.
The case sparked a debate around free speech and the judiciary’s openness to criticism, with thousands of lawyers backing Bhushan and arguing that the court was being too harsh.
‘Freedom of expression is there but rights of others should also be respected,’ the court said while imposing the fine on Bhushan.
Bhushan in a tweet thanked his supporters and shared his official reaction on the court’s verdict.
In June, Bhushan posted a photograph that he said showed Chief Justice S A Bobde astride a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, saying he was riding a 5 million rupee ($67,000) bike without a mask or a helmet while citizens were being denied justice as the court was in lockdown.
In another post on Twitter the same month, Bhushan said that when historians looked at how democracy had been destroyed in India in the past six years, they would note the role of the Supreme Court and the past four top justices.—Agencies
