New Delhi: Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Thursday recused himself from hearing a batch of pleas seeking contempt action against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra for his alleged scandalous tweets against the judiciary.
A bench headed by the CJI took up the petitions and said, 'We will place this matter before a bench to which I (CJI) am not a part of because the comments (tweets) were made on the order, which I have passed.'
The bench also comprising Justice P S Narasimha then listed the matter after two weeks and the CJI, in his administrative capacity will now assign the case to another bench. Kamra had started publishing the tweets on November 11, 2020, when the top court was hearing an appeal of Arnab Goswami against the Bombay high court's order rejecting the journalist's plea for interim bail in a 2018 abetment-to-suicide case. The order granting interim bail to Goswami was passed by a bench headed by Justice Chandrachud.
On January 29, 2021, Kamra in his affidavit had defended his tweets against judiciary, saying India would be reduced to a 'country of incarcerated artists and flourishing lapdogs' if powerful people and institutions show inability to 'tolerate rebuke or criticism'.
—PTI