Author Anand Ranganathan, who on Wednesday appeared before the Delhi High Court in a criminal contempt case for his alleged remarks against a judge of the court, asserted his stand as a “free speech absolutist”.
Mr. Ranganathan also denied having made any comment against the judge.
Advocate J. Sai Deepak, representing Mr. Ranganathan, said his client only made a “general statement” against the concept of contempt of court.
Taking note of the submission, a Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh observed that the court was “all for free speech”, but statements should not be slanderous.
The Bench then granted four weeks to Mr. Ranganathan, Consulting Editor of Swarajya magazine, to submit an affidavit to clarify his position on the case.
In 2018, certain tweets alleging bias against Justice S. Muralidhar, who was then a judge of the Delhi High Court and is currently the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, were made by various persons for ordering release of rights activists Gautam Navlakha from house arrest in the Koregaon-Bhima violence case.
Subsequently, on October 25, 2018 a contempt case was initiated by the High Court based on a letter received from advocate Rajshekhar Rao, who had also submitted an article along with video, uploaded on the Internet, in respect of Justice Muralidhar.
The contempt proceedings were initiated against alleged contemnors — filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, Mr. Ranganathan and others. The High Court had also then directed two social media platforms to block the web links of the article levelling scandalous allegations against the judge.
In April this year, the High Court discharged Mr. Agnihotri in connection with the criminal contempt case over his alleged remarks against the judge after he tendered an unconditional apology.
