BREAKING - Delhi High Court Discharges Vivek Agnihotri In Contempt Case After 'Unconditional Apology', Asks Him To Be Careful In Future

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri on Monday expressed his remorse and tendered an unconditional apology before the Delhi High Court in a contempt case related to remarks made against Justice S. Muralidhar on microblogging platform Twitter in 2018. Agnihotri was present in the courtroom and said he has "utmost respect" for the institution of judiciary.

In 2018, Agnihotri allegedly retweeted a post against Justice Muralidhar, former judge of the High Court and present Chief Justice of Orissa High Court, in respect of the judge's order quashing the order of house arrest and transit remand of activist Gautam Navlakha in the Bhima Koregaon case.

A division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Vikas Mahajan recalled the show cause notice for initiating proceedings of criminal contempt against Agnihotri and also discharged him as alleged contemner.

“He states that he has utmost respect for institution of judiciary and didn't intend to willfully offend the majesty of court,” the court noted.

The court also cautioned the filmmaker against making similar remarks in future. Justice Mridul orally said:

“We'll be also cautioning you, Mr. Agnihotri to be careful in going forward.”

Advocate J. Sai Deepak appearing for another alleged contemner Anand Ranganathan requested for a short accommodation and submitted that he will remain present in court on the next date of hearing.

While hearing another connected criminal contempt case filed by Delhi High Court Bar Association against S Gurumurthy, Justice Mridul said:

“What is relevant is that every citizen should know that you must be careful. We invite just and fair criticism. It's how we function. But the fact is sometimes every proceedings runs its course, we can't keep them pending beyond that.”

The court has now listed the matter for hearing on May 24.

In December last year, Agnihotri had tendered an “unconditional apology” before the court for his remarks after which the court asked him to remain present to “show remorse in person.”

In September 2022, the court had directed to proceed ex parte against Swarajya news portal, Anand Ranganathan and others who did not appear in the matter.

The proceedings were initiated after Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao wrote a letter to the court stating that the tweet was a deliberate attempt to attack a sitting high court judge.

Previously, Agnihotri had told court that he has taken down the tweet in question. However, amicus curiae Senior Advocate Arvind Nigam had informed court that Twitter in its response has said that the tweets were taken down by the microblogging platform.

Title: Court In Its Own v. S Gurumurthy

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 298