Stand-up comedian, Kunal Kamra has refused to apologise for his tweets criticising the Supreme Court reiterating that “silence of the Supreme Court on matters of other’s personal liberty cannot go uncriticized.”
A day after AG MM Venugopal gave consent to allow contempt of court proceedings against Stand Up comedian Kunal Kamra, Kamra has responded with an open letter on his twitter account.
“My view hasn’t changed because the silence of the Supreme Court of India on matters of other’s personal liberty cannot go uncriticised. I don’t intend to retract my tweets or apologise for them. I believe they speak for themselves,” Kamra said in the post titled “No lawyers, No apology, No fine, No waste of space”.
No lawyers, No apology, No fine, No waste of space ??? pic.twitter.com/B1U7dkVB1W
— Kunal Kamra (@kunalkamra88) November 13, 2020
In the statement addressed to the Supreme Court judges and the AG, Kamra has suggested that rather than hearing the contempt plea against him, the top court of the country should consider hearing other matters where “parties have not been lucky and privileged” and that he would not “like to jump the queue.”
He also suggested that the court’s time could be better utilised hearing cases relating to “demonetisation, the petition challenging the revocation of J&K’s special status, the matter of the legality of electoral bonds or countless other matters that are more deserving of time and attention”.
“To slightly misquote Senior Advocate Harish Salve ‘Will the heavens fall if more salient matters are allotted my time'”, he has added.
Further, the comedian has stated that though the top court has not held his tweets to be contemptuous yet, he does hope that the judges “have a small laugh” before declaring them the contempt of court.
The four tweets by Kamra which triggered a flurry of requests to the AG for initiating contempt against him are as follows:
1. The Supreme Court of this country is the most Supreme joke of this country…
2 .The pace at which the Supreme Court operates in matters of “National Interests” it’s time we replace Mahatma Gandhi’s photo with Harish Salve’s photo…
3. DY Chandrachud is a flight attendant serving champagne to first-class passengers after they’re fast-tracked through, while commoners don’t know if they’ll ever be boarded or seated, let alone served.
4. All lawyers with a spine must stop the use of the prefix “Hon’ble” while referring to the Supreme Court or its judges. Honour has left the building long back…
Kamra also posted a picture which was a morphed image of the Supreme Court building giving it an Orange shade and depicting a BJP flag hoisted in the foyer of the Supreme Court.
The AG received a total of 10 letters seeking permission to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Kamra of which he granted consent for 8 including to law student Skand Bajpai and advocates Shrirang Katneshwarkar and Abhishek Raskar.
On the morphed picture of the Supreme Court posted by Kamra, AG stated that it was to insinuate that the top court was not impartial but rather existed for the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
“The picture of the Supreme Court building in saffron colour with the BJP flag is a gross insinuation against the entirety of the Supreme Court of India that the SC is not an independent and impartial institution and so too its judges but on the other hand is a Court of the ruling party, the BJP existing for the BJP’s benefit. All this in my opinion constitutes criminal contempt of court,” said the AG.
Wow, What boldness! “Death-defying”, I would rather say. And how accurate the pinch!
Kudos Kamra. Jai ho!!!