Gautam Navlakha case: Delhi HC closes contempt proceedings against author Anand Ranganathan
Jan 03, 2024
New Delhi [India], January 3 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday closed the contempt proceedings against author Anand Ranganathan in a suo moto contempt case initiated by the Delhi High Court.
The high court initiated the proceedings in relation to some tweets against former Justice S Murlidhar of Delhi High Court, who passed an order quashing the order of house arrest and transit remand of activist Gautam Navlakha and granted him bail in the Bhima Koregaon case.
In this case, S Gurumurthy, editor of a weekly and filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri were also arrayed as contemnors.
The Division Bench, headed by Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, noted that Gurumurthy, Vivek Agnihotri and the editor of the weekly have already been discharged.
The bench said that this case was a sheer waste of judicial time. Therefore, we close the proceedings.
The division also noted that the Ranganathan and other alleged contemnors were not the initiators of the contemptuous allegations against Justice Murlidhar. They merely supported the right to speech of the original contemnor.
Gurumurthy and Agnihotri were discharged in 2019 and 2023 after they tendered an unconditional apology.
Counsel for Anand Ranganathan on October 12, 2023 informed the court that he has filed an affidavit clarifying his client's position.
In an earlier hearing, the counsel said that his remarks were not against the decision to grant bail to Navlakha.
Counsel for Ranganathan had said that what he had said was not based on the facts of the case; it was general in nature.
This matter related to a tweet that he posted in 2018 about Justice S Murlidhar, who had quashed the transit remand of Gautam Navlakha.
The counsel had also said that the tendering of an unconditional apology would amount to accepting the contemptuous conduct.
Another party in the case, a magazine, its counsel submitted before the bench that it had already filed an affidavit tendering an unconditional apology and that the said article had been taken down.
