"We will give time but know our responsibility", Supreme Court to hear 11-year-old contempt case against Prashant Bhushan on August 4

Days after Supreme Court issued notice to Advocate Prashant Bhushan over a suo motu contempt case, a three-Judge Bench took up another 11 year old suo motu contempt case against the lawyer filed by Senior Advocate Harish Salve..Breaking: Supreme Court issues notice to Prashant Bhushan, Twitter, and AG Venugopal in suo motu contempt case filed over tweet on CJI Bobde.This 11-year-old case had been on the shelf for so long that when it was taken up for hearing today, the Counsel involved in the matter sought for the matter to be heard at a later date citing non-urgency of the issue..Senior Advocates Shanti Bhushan and Rajeev Dhavan representing Advocate Prashant Bhushan requested the Court to take up the case for hearing after the physical hearings at the Top Court start..Shanti Bhushan: Please take up the case when normal functioning of the Courts begin. I will be able to assist properly. It (this case) has waited for 11 years, it can wait for a few more weeks..Rajeev Dhavan: This is an important case and seven years have passed since the last hearing. We request time to assist your Lordships..Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal representing the then Editor of Tehelka Magazine Tarun Tejpal also sought for the case to be heard by the Court once physical hearings at the Court resume saying that the case had not been heard for years and therefore, it can wait for some more time given that there is no urgency involved..The Bench expressed its inclination to start hearing the case, however, with Justice Mishra remarking that "This case needs to be heard by someone. We need to start hearing at least." Justice BR Gavai also questioned as to why this case needed to wait for physical hearings to resume when some of the Constitution Bench matters were also being heard via video conferencing..Rajeev Dhavan: The record runs into three or four volumes. There are questions of interpretation in this case which have not arisen before. For me to assist the court, I need some time. I am always ready to assist.Not only Dhavan, but Sibal and Senior Counsel Shanti Bhushan also sought time to assist the Court. Shanti Bhushan, who had filed an impleadment application in the case, told the Court today that this application of his is also pending. The Court, expressed disinclination to implead him but the same was resisted by Bhushan himself. .Agreeing to the request made by all the Counsel involved, the Court agreed to hear the case next on August 4..We will give time but we know our responsibility... Full time has been given and then let us see.Supreme Court.A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishnan Murari heard the suo-moto contempt case which has its genesis in a set of allegations put forth by Bhushan against former Chief Justices SH Kapadia and KG Balakrishnan. .Post this, the Supreme Court had taken suo motu notice of the issue after a complaint to this effect was filed by Senior Counsel Harish Salve..Moreover, in the interview given by Prashant Bhushan to Shoma Chaudhury of Tehelka magazine in 2009, he also allegedly said that half of the preceding 16 Chief Justices were corrupt. As per the complaint, Bhushan also said in the interview that he had no proof of the allegations..Bhushan had also criticised former CJI Justice SH Kapadia for deciding the Niyamgiri mining case involving Vedanta/Sterlite despite holding shares in Sterlite..The contempt petition was held maintainable by a three-judge bench on November 10, 2010 following which the case was heard on 17 occasions. Advocate Bhushan’s father and former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan filed an application bringing on record the instances of corruption against six CJIs. This was produced in a sealed cover and not yet perused..The case was last heard by the top court on May 2, 2012..Apart from this 11-year-old case and the latest suo moto contempt case filed for his tweets bringing "disrepute to the administration of justice" and the one where he alleged corruption on part of past CJIs in 2009, other contempt petition against Bhushan was filed in March 2019 by the present Attorney General KK Venugopal and the Union of India through Secretary to the Government, C Chandramouli. .In their separate contempt petitions, they highlighted a February 1, 2019 tweet by Bhushan alleging that the Government misled the Court about the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as interim Director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). That matter too is being heard by a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra..Will you apologise unconditionally? No – Prashant Bhushan to Justice Arun Mishra in intense contempt petition hearing.Read Order: