The Kerala High Court on Thursday has denied initiating the proceedings for the contempt of court against a former judicial officer for making unpleasant post on a social media platform.
The bench of Justice Devan Ramachandran condemned the act of the former judicial officer S. Sudeep, who made a series foul post against the order of the High Court and its order on Facebook. The bench was not in favour of giving him undue publicity over the Facebook post, hence the contempt proceedings were not initiated.
The bench observed that the former judicial officer Sudeep attacked the judge personally while commenting on the order passed by the High Court in a disrespect manner. Sudeep went on to add his personal opinion on the order passed. It could be inferred that it was done in a attempt to sabotage the case and change its trajectory into a different direction.
The bench also dismissed the summons issued to him saying that the greatest punishment for him would be denial of his fame for few 15 minutes which he tried to gain while trying to ride over this court.
However, the Registry was directed to take appropriate action against the former judicial officer as per the law over the posts made on Facebook while procuring required orders from the Chief Justice of the High Court.
Advocate Mohammed Shah, a member of the Bar Council brought attention of the court to the Facebook. Where the social media post allegedly criticized the orders passed in a case pertaining to fake antique dealer Monson Mavunkal . The Facebook post ridiculed the judge and also objection towards the suo-motu impleadment of the DGP and Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the said case.
On a previous hearing of the case, the court took note of former judge’s Facebook post which attacked the order of the court. The former judge had resigned from his the post of Judge over social media posts/comments while he was facing disciplinary proceedings against him.
Justice Ramachandran while communicating his apprehension over the social media trend said that social media tend to label anyone who does not subscribe to any particular set of ideologies. The majority of the people are of right thinking and so is majority of the Bar but there is only a small section who tends to be mischievous.