The Case of Contempt.
So, what if have we learnt from following the news this week? We have learnt that there is a thin line between contempt of court and voicing one’s opinion and the cases of Prashant Bhushan and Swara Bhaskar are wonderful examples to understand how that line is sometimes blurred. As per the Contempt of Court ACT 1971- “(a)contempt of court? means civil contempt or criminal contempt. (b)civil contempt? means wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court. (c)criminal contempt? means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which? (i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or (ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or (iii) interferes or ten