Prashant Bhushan held guilty of contempt of court, punishment to be decided next week

The Supreme Court today held senior lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt for tweeting against the court and chief justice of India SA Bobde.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari held that Bhushan had committed "serious contempt of the court”. The court will decide the punishment after another hearing on August 20. Contempt of court is punishable by up to six months in jail, or a fine of up to Rs 2,000, or both.

On August 5, the court had reserved its ruling in the suo moto case after Bhushan defended his two tweets arguing that they were regarding the personal conduct of judges and didn’t obstruct the administration of justice, Live Law reported.

In one of the tweets, posted on 27 June, Bhushan had commented on the role of the Supreme Court and the last four chief justices in the “destruction” of democracy over the last six years, according to the Print. In the other tweet, on 29 June, he commented on a photo of Bobde sitting astride a Harley Davidson motorcycle, questioning why the chief justice was wearing neither a helmet nor a face mask even as “he keeps the SC in lockdown mode” owing to the coronavirus pandemic.