SC pulls up woman lawyer for language used in FB post, asks her to move HC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reprimanded a woman lawyer for a “derogatory” Facebook post targeting another woman who accused Kerala Congress MLA Rahul Mamkoottathil of rape.

“Being a lady, what sort of comments have you made about other women... Had it been a man who had written all this nonsense, we would have got him arrested here itself,” a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said while refusing to entertain a plea of Deepa Joseph.

Deepa Joseph was apprehended arrest by Kerala Police in connection with the social media post.

At the outset, the bench expressed serious displeasure over the language and tone of the post.

“Are you expected to write in this type of language? You are an advocate,” the CJI said.

The woman lawyer said the contents of her post were based on the information given by the husband of the complainant, who made the rape allegation against the Congress legislator and nothing was defamatory.

“Do we expect a practising woman advocate to write all these things,” the CJI asked. The petitioner maintained that she did not write anything defamatory and did not disclose the identity of the victim.

The bench said the language was the most derogatory of a woman and asked how can a woman write like this against another. “You have not spared a single word in your dictionary.

And still you are not regretting! Should we read out in public what you have written,” the bench asked.

“If the husband has come forward to you and confided in you since you are an advocate, then you will put that confidential information in the public domain,” the bench asked.

The bench asked whether the lawyer was engaged by the husband of the complainant to write “all this nonsense”.

“It is not nonsense, Sir,” the lawyer said.

The bench dismissed the plea and asked the lawyer to approach the Kerala High Court for any relief.