The Supreme Court Wednesday issued notices to Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and advocate Prashant Bhushan on the contempt proceedings it has initiated against the activist-lawyer for his alleged derogatory tweets against the judiciary.
The apex court directed that Twitter Inc be made a party, instead of Twitter India, to the contempt proceedings it has initiated suo motu (on its own) and asked the US-based firm to file a response in the matter.
A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra was told by Twitter's counsel that if the top court directs, then they would disable the alleged contemptuous tweets of Bhushan. The bench, which asked the Attorney General to assist in the matter, has posted the case for hearing on August 5.
The allegedly contemptuous tweets were critical of the top court and posted by Bhushan on Twitter on June 27 and June 29.
Bhushan has been raising issues pertaining to judiciary, and recently he was very critical and vocal of the way in which the top court handled the matters related to migrant workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also made statements relating to the treatment meted out to jailed activists like Varavara Rao and Sudha Bharadwaj who are accused in Bhima-Koregaon case.
Earlier too, in November 2019, the apex court had issued contempt notice to Bhushan for allegedly casting aspersions on some sitting and former top court judges in an interview to a news magazine.
