Plea for criminal contempt proceedings against Swara Bhasker dismissed

New Delhi:

The Attorney General of India has dismissed a plea to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against actor Swara Bhasker for comments on the top court’s verdict in the Babri Masjid and Ayodhya land dispute case; the comments were described by the petitioner as “derogatory”, “scandalous” and an “attack on the institution”.

On Sunday evening Attorney General KK Venugopal said the comment was the “perception of the speaker” and did not “offer any comment on the Supreme Court itself or say anything that would scandalise or tend to scandalise… the authority of the Supreme Court”.

“In my opinion, this statement does not constitute criminal contempt,” the Attorney General said.

According to news agency ANI, in February this year Ms Bhasker attended a panel discussion organised by a group called “Mumbai Collective”, at which she allegedly made “derogatory and scandalous statements in the context of the Supreme Court of India”.

The statement, written out in full in the Attorney General’s letter today, read: “We are living in a country where the Supreme Court of our country states that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was unlawful and, in the same judgment, rewards the same people who brought down the mosque”.

In November last year the Supreme Court ruled that the formerly disputed land in Ayodhya belonged entirely to the deity Ram Lalla, or the infant Lord Ram.

The court, however, also said that the razing of the 16th century Babri masjid in December 1992 was unlawful and a “calculated act of destroying a place of public worship”.

The second comment made by Ms Bhasker, also written out in the Attorney General’s letter today, said that “we are ruled by a government that doesn’t believe in our Constitution… we are ruled by police forces that do not believe in the Constitution… it seems we are now in a situation where our courts are not sure whether they believe in the Constitution…”

She goes on to say that the way forward had been “shown to us” by numerous civil society protests led by students and women, in particular.

The Attorney General’s refusal to proceed with a criminal contempt case against Ms Bhasker comes days after lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan was held guilty of the same charge. Mr Bhushan, the court ruled, had crossed a line in making comments about the judiciary.

Mr Bhushan, in his defence, said he considered the tweets “as an attempt for working for the betterment of the institution”, and that open criticism was necessary to safeguard democracy in India.