On June 29th, the Chief Justice of India was seen wearing casual clothes and sporting a look of him riding a Harley Davidson bike in the city of Nagpur, Maharashtra. This picture uploaded by renowned Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan on Twitter India soon became the talk of the town. Today, the Supreme Court bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari hears a suo moto case alleging contempt of court against Advocate Prashant Bhushan and Twitter India. In the proceeding, Twitter India says the right company to be impleaded should be Twitter Incorporated and clarifies that it does not defend the tweet of Adv. Bhushan. The Bench headed by Justice Mishra allows for Twitter Incorporated to file a reply and also adds that the tweet in question was made into a publication by Times of India.

The main concern of the court was the tweet of 27th June 2020 by Adv. Bhushan where he makes the following remarks: "When historians in future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs."

The Court issued a show cause to the advocate for him to reply as to why contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against him over his tweets on the judiciary.

The Tell-Tale of the Tweets

Suo Moto cases are where the High Courts and the Supreme court of India initiate a hearing by taking cognizance of any matter on its own, without anybody filing any appeal or writ petition. In this case, the Supreme Court was motivated to take action after a Madhya Pradesh based advocate, Mahek Maheshwari filed a petition on 2nd July against Bhushan and Twitter India seeking contempt action against both. Mr. Bhushan’s caption on the tweet stated “CJI rides a 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC in Lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access Justice!".

The petition by Maheshwari states that the tweet is to be considered as one of a serious nature as it makes the public question and speculates the sovereign functions of the CJI and their abiding nature to the Constitution of India. The plea observes that such inhuman remarks are uncalled for especially when the judges are going beyond in this pandemic to ensure justice to the citizens that are conducting video conferencing hearings and are not even enjoying vacations. It is further stated in the petition that the

tweet incites ‘feeling of no-confidence’ in the independence and credibility of the judiciary and therefore amounts to ‘scandalizing the court’ which attracts charges of criminal contempt under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.