CONTEMPT APPLICATION (CRIMINAL) No. - 17 of 2010
Petitioner :- Ravi Kiran Jain
Respondent :- Vinod Mehta Editor-In-Chief Outlook & Others
Order dated 11.10.2010
[After converting the petition as a matter of suo motu action the cause title has been ordered to be described as: "RE: In the matter of contempt by the weekly magazine OUTLOOK. " ]
Above petition has been preferred by the petitioner who is a Senior Advocate practising in this High Court praying for taking suo motu cognizance for punishing the respondents under the Contempt of Courts Act 1971 for their acts of scandalizing the Court by making reckless allegations against the Chief Justice of this Court, by imputing motives to him of having passed administrative orders for favouring Smt. Mayawati, Chief Minister of U.P. and making other pejorative allegations against the judiciary and in this manner they have lowered the authority of this Court, and also interfered with the due course of judicial proceedings.
The article aforesaid is based on a complaint made to the Chief Justice of India and it contains the excerpts of the allegations made in the complaint. It remains to be seen whether the publication which insinuates the influence of the executive on the judiciary, and tries to cast aspersions regarding routine meetings of the head of the judiciary with the executive head of the State tends to create distrust in the popular mind and impairs the confidence of the people in the courts and further tends to create mistrust that the head of the State judiciary is not of the proper standard.
The article has been attributed to have been jointly processed for publication by Sugata Srinivasaraju in Bangalore, Smruti Koppikar in Mumbai, Chander Suta Dogra in Chandigarh, Saikat Datta and Chandrani Banerjee in Delhi who have been arrayed as respondents 5 to 9. Besides the above, Vinod Mehta, the Editor -in-Chief, Outlook, Maheshwar Peri Publisher, Outlook, Kirshna Prasad, Editor, Outlook and Bishwadeep Moitra, Executive Editor, Outlook have also been arrayed as respondents 1 to 4.
Notices have bee issued to the respondents to appear in Court on 12.11.2010.
