Scribe's tweet against judge irks Delhi High Court

New Delhi: The Delhi high court Thursday expressed anguish over the comments made by an editor of a Chennai-based news magazine against a sitting high court judge and said the case concerns the judicial system.

A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and I.S. Mehta said journalistic licence does not give a person the right to make unsavoury allegations.

“We are all in for free press but don’t attribute motive to us,” the bench said.

The court was hearing a contempt plea filed against Swaminathan Gurumurthy, editor of Tamil weekly magazine Thuglak by the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA).

The bench said the present case does not concern a specific judge but the judicial system and observed, “We are not supposed to defend ourselves on social media. Judges don’t defend themselves. Is this fair comment that you attribute motive to the judiciary? We are dismayed.”

The counsel for Gurumurthy, also a chartered accountant and an economic analyst, sought time to file reply to the rejoinder given by the DHCBA.

The court, however, said there can be no reply to a rejoinder and asked the counsel to proceed with his defence.

Gurumurthy’s advocate said he was an eminent journalist and the tweet was merely a question and claimed that the petition filed by DHCBA was not maintainable.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on December 4.

The contempt petition had sought punishment for the editor for “lowering the authority” of the court by posting certain tweets in connection with its decision to protect senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram’s son Karti from arrest till March 20.

It alleged that the editor never tendered an apology for making “scandalous” allegations.