RE: IN THE MATTER OF CONTEMPT BY THE WEEKLY MAGAZINE OUTLOOK Vs. VINOD MEHTA, EDITOR IN CHIEF OUTLOOK AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Criminal Misc. Contempt Application was filed by a Senior Advocate of this Court with a prayer to punish the opposite parties by taking suo motu action for having committed contempt of court on a story published in the Weekly News Magazine 'Outlook" published on October 4, 2010 under Article 215 of Constitution of India read with Section 15 of Contempt of Courts Act. By the order dated October 11, 2010 the Court ex -facie found the ingredients of Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Court Act, 1971 to be disclosed making the alleged contemnors liable to be prosecuted under Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Court Act, 1971, punishable under Section 12 of the Act. Notices were issued intimating the Respondents that the Court has taken suo moto cognizance of the matter and to show cause as to why charges be not framed for making the contemptuous statement outlined in the story which denigrate the Chief Justice and the judiciary generally and tend to scandalize and lower the authority of the Court and to prejudice the due course of judicial proceedings. In the same order, the Court requested Hon'ble Chief Justice to assign a bench for regular hearing of the matter. The Court also directed that the name of the Petitioner (Senior Advocate) shall be deleted from the array of the parties and the case should be treated as one where the Court has taken suo motu action in the matter and cause title be described as Re: In the matter of contempt by the weekly magazine OUTLOOK.

(2.) THE matter was nominated to us on 01.11.2010.

(3.) BY an order dated January 17, 2011 we allowed the applications for exemption of personal presence of Shri Vinod Mehta (opposite party No. 1); Sugata Srinivasaraju (opposite party No. 5); Ms. Smurti Koppikar (opposite party No. 6); Chander Suta Dogra (opposite party No. 7); and Ms. Chandrani Banerjee (opposite party No. 9). They were exempted to appear personally unless otherwise directed by the Court, and the matter was fixed for hearing of framing of charges.