A BJP leader has moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking criminal contempt proceedings against Cockroach Janta Party co-convener Saurav Das over an X post that, the petition alleges, imputed political motives to a recent judgment and scandalised the Court.
Chandigarh: A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking the initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) co-convener Saurav Das, over a post on X that, according to the petition, imputed political motives to the High Court’s recent direction for the release of pending dearness allowance and dearness relief (DA/DR) to Punjab government employees and pensioners [Nitin Garg v. Saurav Das].
The petition has been filed by advocate Nitin Garg, State General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), Punjab unit. The allegations set out below are those contained in the petition; the plea has only been filed, and no notice has been issued, no contempt found, and no view expressed by the Court. Nothing stated here is a finding against the person proceeded against, who is entitled to be heard.
The judgment at the centre of the dispute
The underlying judgment was delivered on August 3 by a Bench of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra, then the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court, and Justice Rohit Kapoor. The Court had directed the Punjab government to release up-to-date pending instalments of DA/DR to all its employees and pensioners, and had also directed the State not to resort to unproductive expenditure, such as large-scale advertising campaigns in print or on social media, until the dues were cleared.
It is Das’s commentary on that judgment, posted on X on August 20, that the petition seeks to have treated as criminal contempt.
What the petition alleges
According to the petition, Das’s post claimed that the case had been withdrawn from another bench, described by him as one with a reputation for independence, in violation of the roster, and linked the timing of the judgment to the Chief Justice’s subsequent elevation. The petition characterises these as false claims that scandalised the Court’s decision and portrayed it as an instrument of party politics.
The petitioner disputes the factual premises of the post on two specific counts. First, the plea states that the Court had not reduced the compliance timeline from 30 days to 15 days, as the post is said to have claimed, but had instead extended it to a workable fresh time-limit. Second, it states that Justice Mishra had not been “elevated” or “promoted” as Chief Justice on the date suggested, but had merely been recommended for the post by the Supreme Court Collegium. On that basis, the petition contends that to convert a recommendation into a “promotion,” and then to invite the reader to infer a quid pro quo, was a knowing use of a false premise to support a defamatory conclusion.
The petition further argues that the post amounted to an attack on the collegium system, the Supreme Court and the entire edifice of judicial appointments. On that footing, Garg has sought the initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against Das, a direction for the takedown of the post on X, and a direction that Das tender an unconditional apology on X and keep it pinned for at least a month.
The law of criminal contempt by ‘scandalising the court’
The petition invokes one of the more contested heads of the law of contempt. Under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, “criminal contempt” includes the publication of any matter that “scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court.” The provision is meant to protect public confidence in the administration of justice, on the reasoning that unfounded imputations of bias or corruption against judges, who by convention do not publicly defend themselves, can erode that confidence.
At the same time, the offence sits in tension with the right to free speech under Article 19(1)(a), and courts have repeatedly cautioned that the contempt jurisdiction is not to be used to shield judges from criticism. The Supreme Court has held that fair and reasonable criticism of a judgment, or of the functioning of the judiciary in good faith, is not contempt, and that the power to punish for scandalising the court must be exercised sparingly and only where the imputation genuinely threatens the administration of justice rather than merely stinging a judge’s amour propre. The distinction that a contempt court draws, between protected criticism and an actionable, false imputation of improper motive, is precisely the terrain on which a plea of this kind is contested. Whether Das’s post falls on one side of that line or the other is a question that, if the Court takes up the plea, it alone will decide.
What happens next
A private individual cannot, on his own, launch criminal contempt proceedings for scandalising the court: under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, such a motion by any person other than the Advocate General ordinarily requires the consent in writing of the Advocate General. A petition of this nature is therefore, at the threshold, a request to the Court to set the contempt machinery in motion, and it is for the Court to decide whether to entertain it at all. As matters stand, the petition has merely been filed; the High Court is yet to consider whether to issue notice or take any further step.
The case is the latest instance of the friction between online political commentary and the courts, a theme that has recurred in other recent proceedings involving CJP figures. It also arrives against the backdrop of a wider public debate about the “master of the roster” and the transparency of judicial listing and appointments, the very subjects Das’s post is said to have addressed. How the High Court responds will therefore be watched not only for its bearing on Das, but for what it signals about the boundary between permissible criticism of judicial administration and criminal contempt. Nothing has been decided; the allegations in the petition are untested, and the person proceeded against has not yet been heard.
Case Title: Nitin Garg v. Saurav Das (contempt petition)
Court: Punjab and Haryana High Court