The Delhi High Court on April 10 discharged filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri in connection with a criminal contempt case over his alleged remarks against a judge of the court after he tendered an unconditional apology.
A Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Vikas Mahajan recalled the criminal contempt notice issued to Mr. Agnihotri and noted that an affidavit filed by him also reflected the regret and remorse unconditionally expressed by him to the court
“In view of the circumstances that Vivek Agnihotri stated that he has utmost respect for the institution of judiciary and did not intend to wilfully offend the majesty of this court, the notice to show cause issued to him is hereby recalled. Vivek Agnihotri stands discharged as the alleged contemnor,” the High Court said.
“Mr. Agnihotri, we will be cautioning you to be careful in future,” the court told the filmmaker who appeared before it in pursuance of its earlier direction.
In a tweet in October 2018, Mr. Agnihotri accused Justice S. Muralidhar, who was then a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court and is currently the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, of bias after a Bench headed by him quashed Gautam Navlakha’s house arrest and transit remand in the Koregaon-Bhima violence case.
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Subsequently, on October 25, 2018, a contempt case was initiated by the High Court based on a letter received from advocate Rajshekhar Rao, who had also submitted an article along with video, uploaded on the internet, in respect of Justice Murlidhar.
The High Court had earlier directed two social media platforms to block the weblinks of the article levelling scandalous allegations against the judge.
In October 2019, the court closed the contempt of court proceedings against Swaminathan Gurumurthy, editor of weekly magazine Thuglak, for re-tweeting an article against Justice Murlidhar.
On December 6 last year, the High Court asked Mr. Agnihotri to appear before the court and “show remorse in person” after he tendered a written apology for his tweets.
During the hearing, the lawyer appearing for another alleged contemnor, Anand Ranganathan, assured the High Court that he would remain present before it on May 24, the next date of hearing in the case.
“Our dignity is founded on a stronger foundation and not on what somebody says about us. There are times when you have to give quietus to things,” the High Court said adding that it had kept the matter pending only to make it clear that “you can’t make things irresponsibly”.
Noting that Mr. Agnihotri has reiterated his remorse and tendered an unconditional apology for the alleged offensive statement made on Twitter, the court orally observed, “Twitter is a great source of misery”.
Published - April 10, 2023 04:52 pm IST
