Delhi HC Drops Contempt Charge Against S Gurumurthy, Orders Him To Retweet The Apology Posted By Original Author [Read Order]

Delhi High Court has removed S Gurumurthy from the list of respondents in a contempt case after he promised to retweet the apology posted by the author of the contemptuous article within 72 hours.

The article titled "Why has Delhi High Court Justice Muralidhar's relationship with Gautam Navlakha not been disclosed?" had claimed that Justice Muralidhar had passed an order in favour of Gautam Navlakha as the Justice's wife is Navlakha's close friend. It was published in a magazine called 'Drishtikone'.

While accepting the apology of the author, the Division Bench of Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal had recorded that the author, who is an American citizen, had undertaken to publish his apology letter on social media and observed that the author holds Justice Muralidhar in high esteem and he was directed to be more careful in the future.

The author was also deleted as a party in the contempt case which was taken up suo moto by this court.

In today's hearing, appearing on behalf of S Gurumurthy, Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani had argued that Gurumurthy would retweet the apology posted by the author of the contemptuous article and will also attach the hyperlink to the apology in his tweet.

It was also submitted that S Gurumurthy will also mention on his Twitter handle that the author has withdrawn the contemptuous article.

It was also submitted by Mr Jethmalani that since S Gurumurthy had only retweeted the said article without any comments, it doesn't amount to an endorsement, hence he can't be held guilty under Contempt of Courts Act.

The court, therefore, dropped the contempt charge against Gurumurthy after assuring itself that he will be posting on his Twitter handle that the author has withdrawn the contemptuous article along with retweeting the hyperlinking to apology.  

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[Read Order]