SC asks advocate to explain his position in contempt suit

The Supreme Court bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and Amitava Roy on Wednesday (January 10) asked petitioner Gulshan Bajwa to file an affidavit stating his objection in the contempt case against him.

Bajwa submitted that the order passed on January 9 by the Bar Council of India against him was served to him yesterday itself. The opposite counsel submitted that after the order he can file statutory appeal before this court. The court has said it was up to the petitioner as to what recourse he wanted to take.

The court had directed the Registry to issue notice to the petitioner “to show cause why appropriate action under the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 or otherwise shall not be initiated against Bajwa who is an Advocate practising in this Court and Petitioner-in-person in CWP No. 9244/2006. In that application, reckless and undesirable allegations were made against the Judges. Averments in regard to curses given by the petitioners to Judges were made in that application. Thereafter, this Division Bench of this Court on August 17, 2006 had noticed the conduct of Mr. Gulshan Bajwa as giving threats to a lady counsel appearing on the other side and opposing him in some cases. By the same order, the Court had directed the counsel to appear on the next date to explain his conduct. However, notice for Contempt of Court was not issued at that stage. On August 18, 2006 none appeared when the case was called out at the initial stage, however, subsequently Mr. Pankaj Aggarwal appeared and undertook to inform the petitioner Mr. Gulshan Bajwa, Advocate to appear on the next date of hearing.

“Mr. Bajwa did not appear in the Court, though Mr. Rajeev Mehra standing counsel for Union of India informed that he was present in the premises of the High Court. Even on August 21, 2006, he did not appear but filed further applications making reckless allegations even against the Bench extending threats and filing transfer applications in the cases without taking instructions from the petitioners and, in fact, without their consent and knowledge.”

“These facts were noticed in the order dated August 21, 2006. It was directed that all the Contempt Petitions may be listed before the same Bench, subject to and after obtaining order of the Acting Chief Justice. The Acting Chief Justice directed the matters to be listed before this Bench. On August 22, 2006, when the cases were listed, again nobody appeared on behalf of Bajwa, nor did he appear in person. There were certain subsequent orders passed, but despite all possible non-ordinary processes of service, Bajwa did not appear before the Court, nor any body appeared on his behalf.

The court said: “In fact, even the addresses given by him were found to be false and incorrect. It may not be necessary to refer to all those orders and we may refer to the order dated August 31, 2006, when the Court had issued formal notice to show cause as to why the petitioner be not dealt with and punished under the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act read with Article 215 of the Constitution of India.

—India Legal Bureau