Kunal Kamra to face contempt case. Attorney General says he crossed the line

Attorney General KK Venugopal on Thursday gave his nod to initiate contempt of court proceedings against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra for his ‘highly objectionable’ tweets against the Supreme Court.

The Attorney General has said that the tweets by Kamra are ‘not only in bad taste but also clearly cross the line between humour and contempt of the Court’.

Kamra on Wednesday had shared a series of tweets concerning the top court in his reaction to interim bail granted to Republic TV’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami by the SC in the 2018 abetment to suicide case. The tweets by Kamra termed to be constituting criminal contempt of court by the AG include, “Honour has left the building (Supreme Court) long back and “The Supreme Court of this Country is the most Supreme joke of this country”.  

In his letter, the AG has also slammed Kamra’s tweet depicting the SC building in saffron colour and said that the tweet amounts to gross insinuation against the entirety of the Supreme Court, undermining its independence.

“This is a gross insinuation against the entirety of the Supreme Court of India that the Supreme Court of India 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,” the letter by AG Venugopal read.

Censuring Kamra’s tweets, the AG said, “I find that today people believe that they can boldly and brazenly condemn the Supreme Court of India and its judges by exercising what they believe is their freedom of speech.”

The nod from Attorney General comes in response to a letter sent by a law student and two lawyers who accused Kamra of scandalising the apex court in a series of tweets, lowering the authority of the court.