Kunal Kamra Says 'Won't Retract Tweets' On Supreme Court As He Faces Contempt Charges

A day after Attorney General KK Venugopal gave his consent to initiate contempt proceedings against Kunal Kamra  for his tweets against the Supreme Court, the stand-up comic said he won’t retract his tweets or apologise.

In a statement, Kamra said that all he tweeted “was from my view of the Supreme Court of India giving a partial decision in favour of a prime time loudspeaker”. Contempt proceedings were sought against him for four of his tweets about the Supreme Court granting interim bail to Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.  

Venugopal gave his permission to eight people on Thursday to file criminal contempt case against Kamra, saying the comedian’s tweets “crossed the line between humour and contempt”, according to NDTV .

Advocate Rizwan Siddiquee had written to Venugopal seeking to initiate contempt proceedings and said in his letter that during the course of the proceedings and also subsequent to the verdict, Kamra “published a series of tweets to scandalise the Supreme Court”, according to LiveLaw . 

Kamra said in his statement that his view hasn’t changed “because of the silence of the Supreme Court of India on matters of other’s personal liberty cannot go uncriticised.”

He also said he wished to volunteer the time that would be allotted to the hearing of his contempt petition “to other matters and parties who have not been as lucky and privileged as I am to jump the queue”. 

Venugopal had said on Thursday said it was time for people to understand that attacking the apex court brazenly will attract punishment.

The consent of either the attorney general or the solicitor general is necessary, under section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, for initiating contempt proceedings against a person.