Tweets Against Justice Kausik Chanda: Lawyer Seeks AG's Consent To Initiate Contempt Against TMC MP Derek O'Brien

A Kolkata based lawyer has written a letter to West Bengal Advocate General Kisohre Datta seeking his consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Rajya Sabha MP and All India Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien for his tweets against Justice Kausik Chanda of the Calcutta High Court.

Pursuant to Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 the consent of the Advocate General is required before the High Court can adjudicate upon a criminal contempt petition filed by a private individual.

Advocate Debapriya Samanta who practices before the Calcutta High Court in his letter has referred to two tweets published by Derek O'Brien on July 18 wherein he had questioned the allocation of Chief Minister's Mamata Banerjee's election case to Justice Kausik Chanda.

In one of his tweets, O'Brien had tweeted pictures of Justice Kausik Chanda participating in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) events during his tenure as a lawyer. The second tweet contained details of cases in which Justice Chanda had appeared as a lawyer for the BJP.

In his letter Advocate Samanta stated that through the aforementioned tweets Mr. O'Brien sought to create an impression in the minds of the general public that Justice Chanda and the Court are prejudiced and that Justice Chanda only acts to protect the interests of the BJP.

"Mr Brien makes these allegations without any proof and are based on sunrises and assumption about Mr. Justice Chanda's character and moral uptightness on account of the mere fact that he had associations with a political party prior to his elevation to the Bench. The contents of both these tweets hence only seeks to bring the Court and the Judge into contempt and lower its authority and hence falls within the scope of Section 2 (c) (1) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971,", the letter stated.

The letter also indicated that Mr. O'Brien is not an ordinary individual as he is a Member of the Parliament as well as a celebrity who enjoys a massive social media following across all platforms. Thus, his words have the potential to influence the minds of the public at large especially on Twitter where he has over 1.2 million followers.

Accordingly, Advocate Samanta sought to initiate contempt proceedings in the interest of justice.