By IANS
New Delhi : The editor, publisher, resident editor and cartoonist of Mumbai-based afternoon tabloid Mid-Day were Tuesday held guilty of contempt of court for writing and publishing unsubstantiated and slanderous articles against former Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal.
A division bench of the Delhi High Court in its ruling said: “There is sufficient material to hold them guilty of contempt of court. The Supreme Court judgments have laid down a ‘Lakshman rekha’, which the publication has crossed.”
The bench of Justices R.S. Sodhi and B.N. Chaturvedi fixed Sep 21 for the pronouncement of the sentence, and directed Mid-Day editor M.K. Tayal, publisher S.K. Akhtar, resident editor Vitusha Oberoi, and cartoonist Irfan to be personally present before it.
The court had taken notice of the news reports that alleged that Justice Sabharwal during his tenure had passed some orders in the sealing cases in the capital favouring his sons, who are close associates of some mall developers in the National Capital Region.
Senior Counsel R.K. Anand submitted to the court the daily’s copy of May 18 seeking issuance of contempt notice against the tabloid.
Anand had brought to the court’s notice the reports that the former CJI’s family benefited from the sealing drive, orders on which were passed by a bench headed by him.
Defending its stand on the contempt notice, the newspaper contended that a judge on retirement ceased to be part of the judiciary.
Appearing for the editor of the tabloid, Senior Advocate Shanti Bhushan said, “Once a person (judge) retires, he ceases to be part of the judiciary.”
“The documentary evidence attesting the allegation was discovered by the reporters of Mid-Day from the official website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs,” he said.
Bhushan also placed before the bench all the relevant documents on the basis of which news reports were published on May 18 and May 19. “We thought it to be our public duty to bring the facts to the knowledge of the people, which appeared to show judicial impropriety at the highest level,” the reply submitted by the paper said.