IN RE: AJAY KUMAR PANDEY…CONTEMNER versus .

21. The aforesaid notice constitutes the basis of Contempt Petition (Crl) No. 55196 while the complaint filed by the contemner against the two Hon 'ble Judges of this Court is the basis of Contempt Petition (Cr!) No. 56/96.

22. The notice issued to as also the complaint subsequently filed against the two Hon'ble Judges of this Court were placed before Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India who directed the same to be placed before the Court. That is how these matters have come before us.

23. The aforesaid notice dated I 0.8.96 issued by the contemner to C the two Hon'ble Judges calling upon them to tender unconditional written apology to him and also to pay compensation, was placed with the officer report dated 12.9.96 before the Court when the following order was passed on 16.9.96: "Mr. Ajay Kumar Pandey, Advocate, C-2230, Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226016 has sent registered letters dated August I 0, 1996 to two Hon'ble Judges of this Court. The language and the tenor of the letter prima facie amounts to scandalising and lowering the authority of this Court. We issue contempt notice to Mr. Pandey, returnable on 30th September, 1996. E He may show cause why he be not held guilty of the contempt of court and punished suitably. Registry to serve the respondent through the Additional Registrar of the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court. Mr. Pandey shall be personally present in Court on 30th September, 1996 at I 0.30 a.m."

24. When the matter was taken up on 30.9.96, the following order was passed." "Mr. Ajay Kumar Pandey, advocate, the contemnor is present G before us. Initially, he had refused to accept summons of this Court but later on he himself contacted the Registry of this Court on September 27, 1996 and obtained the summons. Apart from derogatory and scandalous language written in the letter addressed to two Hon'ble Judges of this Court he also threatened them that he would file criminal complaints H c against them. He has, as a matter of fact, filed complaint case No.122/1/96 on September 23, 1996, The contents of the complaint, in totality, relate to the proceedings conducted in Court No.9 of this Court. The complaint is full of scandalous and abusive language. We issue notice to Mr. Ajay K. Pandey why he should not be held guilty of contempt of court and be punished suitably for tiling this scandalous complaint before Mr. Nepal Singh, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. We take suo moto notice of the complaint filed before the A.C.M.M. The complaint is wholly rivolous and amounts to the abuse of the process of the Court. We quash the complaint. We are told that the A.C.M.M. has further marked that complaint to Ms. Renu Bhatnagar, Metropolitan Magistrate who has fixed the date some time in March, 1997. We quash the complaint and the proceedings before Ms. Re nu Bhatnagar, M.M. Mr. Ajay K. Pandey, standing before us, has fairly stated that he has no objection to the quashing of the complaint. We are further of the view that A.C.M.M. and MM. who have dealt with this complaint have acted without any application of mind~ It seems that they have not even read the contents of the complaint. We issue notice to both of them to show cause why contempt proceedings be not initiated against them. Mr. Pandey may file his reply within one week from today in this Court in both the contempt petitions. He may file all the documents, affidavits of himself or of any other person he wishes to file in support of his defence along with the reply. The contempt petitions shall be heard on 10.10.96 at 10.30 A.M. On our suggestion, Mr. Pandey states that he would not mind having the assistance ofa counsel. Mr. Mukul Mudgal, learned cou~sel present in Court states that he would request Ms. Manju Goel, Secretary, Supreme Court Legal Services Committee to assign a counsel to assist this Court on behalf of the contemnor. We request Mr. G.L. Sanghi, learned senior counsel to assist this Cou·rt. A set of papers be sent to Mr. G.L. Sanghi, learned counsel. The matter regarding contempt notice to Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and Metropolitan Magistrates be IN RE : A. KR. PANDEY listed on 30.10.1996. They shall be personally present in A Court."

25. Separate notices for contempt were issued to the two Magistrates, who are being dealt with separately.

26. When the matter was taken up on 10.10.96, the contemner filed B unqua.lified and unconditional apology to the following effect: "I, Ajay Kumar Pandey, Advocate, the Respondent contemner herein do hereby tender my unqualified and unconditional apology to this Hon'ble Court, for addressing registered letters dated I0.8.96 to two Hon'ble Judges of this Hon'ble Court, C for the language and contents of the said letters, for filing a criminal complaint dated 23.9.96 in the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi, against two Hon'ble Judges of this Hon'ble Court and for the language and contents of the said complaint. I respectfully submit that these actions of mine and the language used by me in relation D to the Judges of this Hon'ble Court were as a result of my losing control over myself for which I am genuinely repentant. I humbly seek forgiveness from this Hon'ble Court, and pray to this Hon'ble Court to accept my apology and show mercy on me. I undertake not to repeat such conduct in the future." E

27. The Court, however, passed the following order on that date: "We have heard Mr. Raju Rarnachandran. On our request he is appearing for the contemnor, A.K. Pandey. We have also heard Mr. G.L. Sanghi, who on our request is appearing to F assistthe Court. We have also heard Mr. A.K. Pandey. Initially Mr. Pandey stated that he could not file reply because the Registry declined to permit him to inspect all the records. We placed the records before him and permitted him to examine the same. Mr. Pandey, who is present in Court states G that he does not want to inspect the records. Mr. Pandey has filed unqualified and unconditional apology. This may be taken on record. We adjourn the hearing of this case to October 30, 1996. Meanwhile, Mr. Pandey may file his reply to the Contempt H Petition, ifhe so wish. The application and the apology which are already on the record shall be taken into consideration on the next date of hearing. The contemnor to be present in Court on October 30, 1996." ,

28. On 30.10.96 when the case was next taken up, the Court passed B the following order:- c "Mr. Arun Jaitley, Sr. Advocate, represent Mr. Nepal Singh, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and Ms. Renu Bhatnagar, Metropolitan Magistrate is represented by Mr. Rajiv Garg, Advocate. Both the conternners are present in Court. To enable them to file affidavits in reply to the contempt notice, we adjourn the hearing to 4th November, 1996. Meanwhile, we direct Registrar of Delhi High Court to send the personal files of these two officers to this Court. We are told that Justice J.K. Mehra and Justice S.N. Kapoor are the inspecting Judges so far as these two judicial officers are concerned. We would request Hon'ble Judges to give their comments regarding these two officers. The earlier orders of this Court in this case may also be sentto the Registry of the Delhi High Court. To come up on 4th November, 1996. Orders to be pronounced on 4th November, 1996 in respect of Mr. Ajay Kumar Pandey."

29. The background facts set out above would indicate that the contemner is a practising Advocate who himself had filed criminal against a brother advocate (Mr.Mrhesh Giri) and Ms. Saroj Bala who was a member of the lower judiciary posted as VII Addi. District Judge at Lucknow, after giving them a notice demanding compensation for having defamed him by publicly saying that he had sexual relations with one of them, namely, G Ms.Saroj Bala. This complaint was dismissed at the initial stage as indicated in the earlier part of this judgment, but he raised a number of controversies, including a demand for enquiry to be set up by the then District Judge, Lucknow, Mr. J.C. Mishra, who is now a sitting Judge of the Allahabad High Court. The contemner filed a Revision before the High Court against H the order by which his complaint was dismissed and the application for IN RE: A. KR. PANDEY summoning the witnesses through court process was rejected. This revision, A as pointed out earlier, was dismissed by Mr. Justice Virendra Saran. In the Special Leave Petition filed against that jucgment, the contemner has criticised Justice Virendra Saran in intemperate language and termed his judgment as forged and fictitious, besides imputing bad motive.

30. When this Court noticed the scandalous and even abusive language by the contemner used against Mr. Virendra Saran and other officers of the judiciary, it required the contemner to delete those sentences or portions and/or file a fresh petition. Not satisfied, the contemner moved an application for recall of the order and in that application he again used intemperate language and thereafter started making efforts to avoid the Court (Hon 'ble C Anand and Mukherjee,JJ) and for this purpose, he adopted derogatory and bad tactics. He gave notice to the two Hon 'ble Judges seeking unconditional apology from them for their conduct and behaviour in the Court and also demanded compensation from them. He wrote to the President of India for sanction to prosecute the Hon'ble Judges for offences under sections D 167, 500, 504 and 506 !PC giving two months time to the President to grant sanction or else he would treat the sanction to have been granted to him. He also threatened to go on hunger strike before the Supreme Court with affect from 25.9.96. He then filed a complaint against the Hon'ble Judges branding their conduct as "goondaism". He pleaded for his case to be listed before some other Bench or to be referred to the Constitution E Bench on the ground that both the Hon'ble Judges were personally involved in the case and, therefore, they need not hear the matter, but he was unsuccessful.

31. This Court, as the highest court of the land, has not only the right to protect itself from being denigrated, but has also the right, F jurisdiction and authority to protect the High Courts and the subordinate courts from being insulted, abused or in any other way denigrated. All the courts, be they the lower or the highest, function for the noble cause of dispensing justice. Since they have to decide litigation between two contesting parties, it is obvious that they have to have full freedom and G independence in settling the litigation. The Presiding Officers who run the courts and conduct the proceedings therein have to act fearlessly. Any action in the part of any person or litigant or lawyer, which tends to interfere or obstruct the process of justice, has to be deprecated so that the proceedings may be held in an orderly fashion and everyone who participates in those H A proceedings may have the feeling of liberty to address the court for proper adjudication of his case.

32. An Advocate, as a citizen of this country, has the fundamental right of freedom of expression and speech under Article 19 of the Constitution. This right is also guaranteed to him under the Advocates B Act. Apart from that, the legal profession has the inherent right to express itself in the best manner possible in uninhibited language, but the right to express also carries with it the duty to be dignified in the use of expression and to maintain decorum and peace in the court proceedings.

33. In Dr. D.C. Saxena v. Hon'b/e the Chief Justice of India, [1996] 5 SCC 216, this Court observed, inter alia, as under: "Advocacy touches and asserts the primary value of freedom of expression. It is a practical manifestation of the principle of freedom of speech. Freedom of expression in arguments encourages the development of judicial dignity, forensic skills of advocacy and enables protection of fraternity, equality · and justice. It plays its part in helping to secure the protection of other fundamental human rights. Freedom of expression, therefore, is one of the basic conditions for the progress of advocacy and for the development of every man including legal fraternity practising the profession of law. Freedom of expression, therefore, is vital to the maintenance of free society. It is essential to the rule of law and liberty of the citizens. The advocate or the party appearing in person, therefore, is given liberty of expression. But they equally owe countervailing duty to maintain dignity, decorum and order in the court proceedings or judicial process. The liberty of free expression is not to be confounded or confused with license to make unfounded allegations against any institution, much less the judiciary."

34. It was further observed in that above case as under:- "Scandalising the Court would mean hostile criticism of judges as judges or judiciary. Any personal attack on a judge in connection with the office he holds is dealt with under law oflibel or slander. Yet defamatory publication concerning the judge as a judge brings the court or judges into contempt, IN RE: A. KR. PANDEY a serious impediment to justice and an inroad on the majesty A of justice. Any caricature of a Judge calculated to lower the dignity of the court would destroy, undermine or tend to . undermine public confidence in the administration of justice or the majesty of justice. It would, therefore, be scandalising the judge as a judge, in other words, imputing partiality, corruption, bias, improper motives to a judge is scandalisation B of the court and would be contempt of the court. Even imputation of lack of impartiality or fairness to a judge in the discharge of his official duties amounts to contempt. The gravamen of the offence is that of lowering his dignity or authority or an affront to the majesty of justice. When the contemnor challenges the authority of the court, he interferes C with the performance of duties of judge's office or judicial process or administration of justice or generation or production of tendency bringing the judge of judiciary into contempt."

35. In the present case, we are concerned with the notice issued by D the contemner to the two Hon'ble Judges demanding apolocy and compensation and the subsequent complaint filed by him in the court of A.C.M.M., Delhi, and the contents thereof. The notice relates to the proceedings of the court on 15.12.1995. It is said that both the Judges, "without any authority, basis, immorally and illegally hurled upon E "me" with highly derogatory, insulting, offending and contemptuous remarks."

36. After setting out what the Judges allegedly said, it is mentioned in the notice as under: "It is the most important to mention here that I had never prayed to grant six weeks time for removing anything from the petitions, filing the fresh petitions and you dictated absolutely false in your order in this regard only with the sole motive to waste the money and valuable time of the G petitioner and anyhow harass me alongwith hide the corruption, fraud, cheating and forgery etc. in a short word, 'sins'.

37. The notice also mentions his application to the President oflndia for sanction and in it he held out a threat to the two Hon'ble Judges that if H A they did not tender conditional written apology to him he would initiate criminal proceedings in the competent criminal court.

38. The criminal contempt is defined in Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 as under: "2(c) "criminal contempt" means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever." According to the definition reproduced above, the first pre-condition is the publication or doing of any other act and the second is that the publication or doing of the act has resulted in the consequences set out in Section 2(c) (i), (ii) and (iii), namely: (i) scandalizes or tends to scandalize, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or (ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding: or (iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.

39. In view of the definition, the contemptuous conduct may be either due to the publication or consist in the doing of any other act.

40. In Delhi Judicial Service Association v. State of Gujarat and Ors., [1991] 4 SCC 406, it was observed by this court that: " ….. The definition of criminal contempt is wide enough to include any act by a person which would tend to interfere with the administration of justice or which would lower the authority of court. The public have a vital stake in effective and orderly administration of justice. The court has the duty of protecting the interest of the community in the due administration of justice and, so it is entrusted with the power to commit for contempt of court, not to protect the dignity of the court against insult or injury, but, to protect and to IN RE: A. KR. PANDEY vindicate the right of the public so that the administration of A justice is not pervClf!ed, prejudiced, obstruct~d or interfered with."

41. In Dr. D.C. Saxena's case (supra), this court has already laid down that if a Judge, on account of the proceedings conduc:ed by him in his court, is threatened that he would be prosecuted in a court of law for B the judicial act done by him, it amounts to criminal contempt as it lowers and tends to lower the dignity of the court.

42. We are also of the same opinion. We may observe that any threat offiling a complaint against the Judge in respect of the judicial proceedings conducted by him in his own court is a positive attempt to interfere with C the due course of administration of justice. In order that the judges may fearlessly and independently act in the discharge of their judicial functions, it is necessary that they should have full liberty to act within the sphere of their activity. If, however, litigants and their counsel start threatening the Judge or launch prosecution against him for what he has honestly and bona fide done in his court, the judicial independence would vanish eroding D the very edifice on which the institution of justice stands. It would also be in violation of the statutory protection available to the Judges and Magistrates under the Judicial Officers (Protection) Act as also the Judges (Protection) Act.

43. Having seen the entire record, we are fully satisfied that the contemner, by questioning the conduct of the Judges through his notice and demanding apology and compensation from them as also the complaint lodged against them, especially in the language employed by him, is guilty of the 'criminal contempt' and is liable to be punished therefor in both the cases. 44. in relation to the quantum of punishment, we may observe that the contemner, who is a practicing advocate and is young in age, had on 10.10.96 tendered before us an unconditional and unqualified apology in writing, withdrawing all the objectionable remarks, sentences and words G used by him in the application, notice and complaint and had expressed his regrets. The Court, however, is not bound to accept the apology; unless there is real feeling of repentance in the contemner. The contemner had already been given an opportunity at the initial stage by both the learned Judges to withdraw his remarks against a Judge of the Allahabad High Court and other officers of the lower judiciary, but he insisted to proceed H SUPREMECOURTREPORTS [1996] SUPP. 8 S.C.R. A with the case. He even initiated contempt proceedings against both the Hon 'ble Judges. But this Court took a lenient view and instead ofinitiating any other action against him, dismissed the criminal contempt petition by order dated 5.8.96 passed by Hon'ble J.S. Verma and Hon'ble B.N. Kirpal, JJ. 45. The jurisdiction of this Court under Article 129 of the Constitution c is independent of the Contempt of Courts Act and the power under Article 129 cannot be denuded, restricted or limited by the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. Thus there is no restriction or limitation on the nature of punishment that this . Court may award while exercising its contempt jurisdiction. But we do not intend to travel far and beyond. 46. Having convicted the contemner for obstructing the course of justice by trying to threaten and overawe the Court by using insulting and disrespectful language and issuing notices and also launching criminal prosecution against two Hon'ble Judges, we sentence the contemner for the offence of criminal contempt as under: R.P. (a) The contemn er Ajay Kumar Pandey is hereby sentenced to undergo imprisonment for a period of six months. On serving this sentence for two weeks, the remaining sentence shall stand suspended for a period of two years and may be . activated in case the cootemner is convicted for any other offence of contempt of court within the said period. He shall be taken into custody forthwith but will be released after two weeks, to be taken into custody again if and when his remaining sentence stands activated. 4 7. The Contempt Petitions are disposed of accordingly. Petitions disposed of.