Twitter Withholds Prashant Bhushan’s Tweets That Caused SC Ire

The tweets were withheld after SC took up suo motu case against Bhushan & Twitter over two tweets posted by Bhushan.

The tweets of senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, which were the basis for the contempt notice against him by the Supreme Court, have been withheld by Twitter.

The tweets have been withheld after a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari took up a case suo motu against Bhushan and Twitter India with regard to two tweets posted by Bhushan. The court order had not asked for Twitter to remove the tweets.

They are to provide their responses as to why they have not committed contempt of court before the next date of hearing, which is 5 August.

The Supreme Court, in its order, said that the tweets have “brought the administration of justice in disrepute and are capable of undermining the dignity and authority of the Institution of Supreme Court in general and the office of the Chief Justice of India in particular, in the eyes of public at large.”

Bhushan, while speaking to The Quint did not wish to comment further at this time on the case. The case was filed on 9 July.

The judges have also issued notice to Attorney General KK Venugopal, and have asked him to assist them in the matter.

The judges have said the contempt case relates to the following tweets by Bhushan on his Twitter handle:

1. On 27 June, he wrote: “When historians in future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs”.
2. On 29 June, he shared an image of CJI Bobde sitting on a Harley Davidson superbike, commenting that the CJI was sitting on a bike belonging to a BJP leader, at a time when the Supreme Court was “denying citizens their fundamental right to access Justice” because it was in lockdown mode.