Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said on Thursday granted his consent for initiating criminal contempt proceedings against stand up comedian Kunal Kamra for his alleged ‘derogatory’ tweets against a Supreme Court judge — for granting bail to Republic TV Editor in Chief Arnab Goswami in a 2018 abetment to suicide case. The AG said that the tweets by Kamra were not only in bad taste, but clearly crossed the line between humour and contempt of court.
Reacting to the same, the comedian on Friday issued a statement on Twitter and wrote, “No lawyers, No apology, No fine, No waste of space.”
His statement read: “Dear Judges, Mr KK Venugopal, the tweets I recently put out have been found in contempt Of court. All that I tweeted was from my view of the Supreme Court Of India giving a partial decision in favour of a Prime Time Loudspeaker. I believe I must confess I very much love holding court and enjoying a platform with a captive audience. An audience of Supreme Court judges and the nation’s top most law officer is perhaps as VIP an audience as it gets. But I realise that more than any entertainment venue I would perform in, a time slot before the Supreme Court is a scarce commodity.”
No lawyers, No apology, No fine, No waste of space ??? pic.twitter.com/B1U7dkVB1W
— Kunal Kamra (@kunalkamra88) November 13, 2020
Declaring that he doesn’t intend on retracting the tweet or even apologizing for it, Kamra further wrote, “My view hasn’t changed because the silence of the Supreme Court of India on matters of other’s personal liberty cannot go uncriticized. I don’t intend to retract my tweets or apologise for them. I believe they speak for themselves. I wish to volunteer having the time that would be allotted to the hearing of my contempt petition (20 hours at the very least, if Prashant Bhushan’s hearing is anything to go by), to other matters and parties who have not been as lucky and privileged as I am to jump the queue.”
Adding, “May I suggest the demonetisation petition, the petition challenging the revocation of J&K’s special Status, the matter Of the legality Of electoral bonds or countless other matters that are more deserving of time and attention. To slightly misquote Senior Advocate Harish Salve ‘Will the heavens fall if more salient matters are allotted my time?’.”
Source: Free Press Journal
