Published on: 14 July 2023 at 12:00 IST
The Delhi High Court has discharged S Gurumurthy, the editor of a Tamil news magazine, in a 2018 criminal contempt case for his alleged offensive tweets against a judge.
The court accepted Gurumurthy’s apology and expression of deep remorse regarding the incident, leading to the discharge of the show cause notice issued to him in the contempt petition.
The contempt plea was filed by the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) after Gurumurthy posted tweets allegedly targeting Justice S Muralidhar, who was a judge of the Delhi High Court at the time.
During the hearing, Rakesh Tiku, a senior advocate representing the DHCBA, argued that Gurumurthy’s apology and statement, in which he expressed the highest respect for the judiciary and expressed sincere regret for any offense caused, along with the removal of the allegedly offensive tweets, could be considered as sufficient compliance with the High Court’s directions from July of the previous year.
Tiku suggested accepting the apology as a means of purging the alleged contempt. The bench acknowledged that Gurumurthy had voluntarily appeared before the court and expressed remorse.
The court clarified that it had not expressed any opinion on the legal issues argued by the senior counsels representing the parties and that these matters would be left open for determination in a suitable proceeding.