S K SUNDARAM Vs. THE TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION SENT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "The Contempt of Court jurisdiction is not exercised to protect the dignity of an individual Judge, but to protect the administration of justice from being maligned". While dealing with this contempt proceedings we remind ourselves of the said observation made by a Constitution Bench of this Court in Supreme Court Bar Association v. Union of India & Anr. 1998 (4) SCC 409 : 1998 (4) Supreme 251.

(2.) ONE S.K. Sundaram, Advocate (hereinafter referred to as the contemner) sent a telegraphic communication to Dr. Justice A. S. Anand, the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India on 3.11.2000. As the present proceedings are founded on the wordings of that communication we feel it necessary to extract the material portion thereof. It reads thus:

(3.) ON a note put up by the Registrar General of the Supreme Court regarding the said telegraphic communication the matter was taken up on the judicial side and we passed an order on 7.11.2000 that prima facie we are satisfied that the contents of the said telegram sent by S.K. Sundaram, Advocate, amount to gross contempt of Court. Hence we issued notice to Mr. S.K. Sundaram, Advocate. In the same proceedings we directed the Registry to inform Mr. Harish N. Salve, Solicitor General of India to assist the Court in these proceedings.