Delhi High Court To Hear On Merits Criminal Contempt Case Against S Gurumurthy Over Tweet Against Justice S Muralidhar

The Delhi High Court on Thursday said that it will hear on merits a criminal contempt case filed against the editor of Tamil political weekly “Thuglak” and RSS Ideologue S Gurumurthy for his tweet against Justice S Muralidhar in 2018.

A division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Talwant Singh listed for hearing on July 06 a plea moved by Delhi High Court Bar Association seeking criminal contempt action against Gurumurthy.

The matter pertains to a tweet made by Gurumurthy where he had posted a question asking whether Justice Muralidhar was a junior of Senior Advocate P Chidambaram. The tweet was made after an interim protection was granted to Karti Chidambaram by a division bench headed by Justice Muralidhar in the INX media case.

Pursuant to this, Justice Muralidhar had categorically clarified that he had no relationship of any kind with P Chidambaram and that he had never worked as his junior.

Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani appearing for Gurumurthy, on instructions, today submitted that he will not file another affidavit expressing an unconditional apology for his tweet as he has already tendered an apology in a response filed in 2018.

However, Justice Singh orally told Jethmalani that the earlier affidavit filed by Gurumurthy was merely a “reply on merits” to the contempt plea and that he must file another affidavit expressing unconditional apology.

“Just file a two line affidavit as well and let us put a quietus on it,” Justice Singh said.

However, Jethmalani stood by the earlier response and agreed that the bench may proceed to hear the case on merits.

Last month, the court discharged filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri in a suo motu criminal contempt case, which also names Gurumurthy as an alleged contemner, related to remarks made against Justice S. Muralidhar on Twitter in 2018.

Agnihotri had expressed his remorse and gave an unconditional apology stating that he has "utmost respect" for the institution of judiciary.