Advocate-General Vijay Narayan has issued a show-cause notice to disqualified AIADMK MLA Thanga Tamilselvan seeking explanation as to why consent should not be granted to a woman lawyer who wanted to initiate criminal contempt of court proceedings against him for having made “scurrilous and derogatory” remarks against Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee.
According to court sources, the A-G has asked the disqualified MLA to appear either in person or through his counsel within two weeks to submit his explanation. It is only after hearing him as well as the petitioner V. Srimathi, 52, a decision would be taken on granting the mandatory consent required under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971.
In her affidavit, the lawyer claimed to have been aggrieved by the derogatory manner in which the disqualified MLA had referred to the High Court and its Chief Justice in media interviews following a split verdict delivered by a Division Bench comprising her and Justice M. Sundar on June 14 in a case filed by him and 17 others challenging their disqualification.
‘An open challenge’
The petitioner specifically referred to an interview of the disqualified MLA telecast by a Tamil television channel on June 23 and 24. In that interview, he had reportedly accused the judiciary of having delivered a verdict that would help the ruling party to continue in power and claimed that the judgment in the disqualification case appeared to have been “purchased.”
“He has accused the Chief Justice of the High Court and other judges to have conspired with the State and Central governments and said that they are pawns in the hands of both the governments... He had also imputed in the interview that the State government was aware of the split verdict much prior to the day on which it was delivered.
“When the interviewer pointed out that the statement of the respondent (Thanga Tamilselvan) would attract action under the Contempt of Courts Act, he openly challenged the judiciary to initiate such an action. This manner of open scandalous allegations is an interference and obstruction to the administration of justice,” Ms. Srimathi said.
Difference in procedures
After taking her contempt petition on file and also assigning a number to it, the High Court Registry had referred it to the Advocate-General for his consent without which the petition could not be listed for hearing. The court officials pointed out that there was a vast difference between procedures adopted for civil contempt and criminal contempt.
Civil contempt refers to wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court. Petitions to punish a person for civil contempt need not be referred to the Advocate-General for his consent and they could be directly listed for hearing before the judge concerned.
However, that was not the case with criminal contempt which refers to publication whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation or the doing of any other act whatsoever which scandalises or tends to scandalise or lowers or tends to lower the authority of any court.
To ensure that criminal contempt proceedings were not initiated on frivolous issues, Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act makes it clear that such proceedings could be initiated either at the instance of the Advocate-General or with his consent if some other litigant wanted to initiate those proceedings.
The Contempt of Court Rules of the Madras High Court, 1975 lay down the procedures for filing such petitions and they require the Registry to number every such contempt petition and refer them to the Advocate-General. “Therefore, now we have referred it to him and the AG has also issued notice to the alleged contemnor,” a court official said.
