The Supreme Court on Friday held a former Kerala MlA guilty of contempt for using “abusive and pejorative” language against a Kerala High Court decision that banned public meetings on roads. “Judges expect, nay invite, an informed and genuine discussion or criticism of judgements, but to incite a relatively illiterate audience against the judiciary, is not to be ignored,” said a Bench of Justices Vikramajit Sen and C Nagappan.
The former MlA and lawyer MV Jayarajan, however, got reprieve as the Court agreed to curtail his sentence from six months to four weeks. Not agreeing to the claim of the former CPI(M) MlA that the comment was an exercise of his right to free speech to criticise a judgment, the Bench said, “It is not open to the appellant or any person to employ abusive and pejorative language to the authors of a judgment and call upon them to resign and step down from their office if they have any self respect.”
The Bench affirmed the HC’s order of June 23, 2010 and held Jayarajan’s speech against the judiciary as “intending to scandalise and lower the dignity of the Court”, and an “intentional and calculated obstruction in the administration of justice which needed to be roundly repulsed and combated. The Bench further observed that Jayarajan showed no remorse or contrition for his conduct and even dismissed his contention that vainly etymologised the Sanskrit origin of word ‘sumbhan’ used by him against the judge on the ground that the contemnor was fully aware it is a slang, that conveyed a strong abuse.