Stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra is known for his Tweets on the political situations in the country but this time he has been slapped with contempt of court charges with his tongue in cheek comment criticising the Supreme Court for granting TV anchor Arnab Goswami interim bail.
After he faced charges, Kamra wrote an open letter and tweeted saying, "No lawyers, No apology, No fine, No waste of space."
Kunal Kamra's open letter to SC after facing contempt of court charges
He stated that "The tweets I recently put out have been found contempt of court. All that I tweeted was from my view of the Supreme Court of India giving a partial decision in favour of prime time loudspeaker. I believe I must confess I very much love holding court and enjoying a platform with a captive audience. An audience of Supreme Court judges and the nation's topmost law officer is perhaps as VIP an audience as it gets."
He added, "But I realize that more than any entertainment venue I would perform in, a time slot before the Supreme Court is a scarce commodity. My view hasn't changed because the silence of the Supreme Court of India on matters of other's personal liberty cannot go uncriticized. I don't intend to retract my tweets or apologize for them. I believe this speaks for themselves. I wish to volunteer for having the time that would be allotted to the hearing of my contempt petition to other matters and parties who have not been unlucky and privileged as I am to jump the queue."
Kamra added, "May I suggest the demonetization petition, the petition challenging the revocation of J&K's special status, the matter of the legality of electoral bonds are countless other matters that are more deserving of time and attention. To slightly misquote senior advocate Harish Salve, "Will the heavens fall if most salient matters are allotted my time?"
Kunal Kamra vs Supreme Court: Here's what happened
It should be noted that in a series of tweets posted on Wednesday, Kamra criticised the SC for fast-tracking the hearing of Arnab Goswami's appeal. The top court ordered to grant bail to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief in a 2018 suicide abetment case.
Attorney General KK Venugopal gave his consent to eight people who want to sue Kunal Kamra for criminal contempt.
The AG said, "This is gross insinuation against the entirety of the Supreme Court of India — that the Supreme Court of India is not an independent and impartial institution and so too its judges, but on the other hand is a court of the ruling party, the BJP, existing for the BJP's benefit. All this in my opinion constitutes criminal contempt of court."
The AG called Kamra's tweets to be in bad taste and that he has clearly crossed the line between humour and contempt.
A Twitter user replied to Kamra's Tweet, Kunal Kamra be like "Jis raste pe hum chal rahe hain, Wo hain One way, Na reverse gear hain na U-Turn."
Another one wrote, "Trying to get fame like Arnab? This stunt of negative publicity will unfortunately cost you negatively."
