New Delhi (ILNS): The Supreme Court today adjourned till the first week of November, a 2009 contempt case against Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan and Tarun Tejpal for allegedly casting aspersions on some sitting and former top court judges in an interview to the news magazine Tehelka. Tejpal was the editor of the magazine then.
During the course of today’s hearing Senior Advocate Dr. Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for Bhushan, informed the Court that the file has been sent to the Attorney General. The bench said the Attorney General is present before the bench.
Attorney General KK Venugopal submitted that the propositions put forward by Dr. Dhavan has to be looked into. The media is trying to influence the decision of the judges which is damaging the judges. The AG further said that he had come across an article relating to a very big case and comments have been extracted which is very damaging.
Dr. Dhavan, however, submitted that there are a lot of cases, even overseas, where comments have not been restricted.
In the previous hearing, the bench accepted the plea of Bhushan to seek the assistance of Attorney General K K Venugopal in the said matter.
The matter was earlier listed before a bench headed by (retd) Justice Arun Mishra. Thereafter the matter is now being heard by a bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar.
The matter will be heard on a non-miscellaneous day in the first week of November.
-India Legal Bureau