Supreme Court: Roy must appear before court

The Supreme Court on Friday, while issuing notice on renowned author Arundhati Roy’s petition challenging initiation of criminal contempt proceedings, refused to grant her exemption from personal appearance before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court on January 25.

A bench of Justices J.S. Khehar and C. Nagappan also issued notice to the state of Maharashtra and PIL petitioner on an appeal filed by Professor Saibaba, seeking bail. A single judge of the Bombay high court, acting on a PIL cancelled the bail to Mr Saibaba and taking serious view of an article written by Ms Arundhati Roy in May 2015 in Outlook magazine, criticising the Centre, Maharashtra and judiciary for the incarceration of wheelchair-bound Saibaba, initiated contempt proceedings against her.

When senior counsel C.U. Singh insisted on stay of proceedings, the bench said, “We have issued notice and we will examine your case.” When counsel pleaded that at least Arundhati Roy may be granted exemption from personal appearance on January 25, Justice Khehar told the counsel, “you appear. What is the big deal about it. What is the difficulty, why are you afraid to face the court. Passions have been whipped up, effigies are burnt, we have issued the process, go and appear.”

Ms Roy challenged the directions dated 23.12.-2015, whereby the Bombay HC directed the registration of criminal contempt case against her. She submitted that the impugned portion of the order in question is not tenable in the eyes of law. The initiation of proceedings for criminal contempt in the given facts and circumstances is not a correct exercise of jurisdiction and is not supported by the law laid down by Constitutional courts from time-to-time.

She said a reading of the contents of the article authored by her would reveal that she was only bringing forth the plight of a person who is 90 per cent disabled, wheelchair-bound and suffers from a degenerative medical condition.