Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has tendered an unconditional apology before the Delhi High Court for his remarks against Justice S Muralidhar on 6 November, according to a report by Live Law. Agnihotri had criticised Justice Muralidhar for his alleged bias in granting bail to activist Gautam Navlakha in the Bhima Koregaon case.
In continuation to the report, the court had commenced suo motu criminal contempt proceedings in the matter against Agnihotri and others in 2018. At the time, Justice Muralidhar was a judge of the Delhi High Court. He is currently the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court.
The Kashmir Files filmmaker filed an affidavit before a bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Talwant Singh on Tuesday, offering an apology for his controversial tweets. This arrived after the High Court decided to proceed ex-parte against Agnihotri, Swarajya news portal and Anand Ranganathan.
However, the Delhi High Court has asked the filmmaker to appear before the court in person for tendering his apology. In his affidavit, Agnihotri claimed that he had deleted his controversial tweets against the judge.
As per the amicus curiae and Senior Counsel Arvind Nigam, the filmmaker's stand could be wrong as Twitter had claimed in its affidavit that their micro-blogging site had taken down Agnihotri's tweets.
Meanwhile, the court has adjourned the hearing to next year, on 16 March.
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