Kerala High Court Today (Aug 6) cancelled contempt proceedings against ex-MLA R Rajesh over a Facebook post claiming bias in judiciary. The Court found that proper legal process was not followed while initiating the case.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!
KOCHI: The Kerala High Court today officially dropped the contempt of court case against former CPI(M) MLA and Kerala University syndicate member R Rajesh. The case was related to a Facebook post in which he had alleged that some judges were supporters of the Sangh Parivar.
A Division Bench made up of Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan V and Justice KV Jayakumar accepted Rajesh’s request to be discharged from the case.
The Court found that the way the contempt case was started was not legally correct and did not follow required procedure.
The contempt case had originally been initiated by Justice DK Singh on July 7. He said that Rajesh’s post on Facebook looked like a clear case of criminal contempt because it scandalised the Court and interfered with judicial proceedings.
But the Division Bench said today that the way the single judge started the case did not follow several important legal steps mentioned under the Contempt of Courts (High Court of Kerala) Rules, 1971.
Rajesh came to court in person for this hearing, following an earlier court direction. His lawyer, Senior Advocate Deepak P, argued that the entire contempt case was procedurally flawed.
He told the Court that according to the 1971 Rules, the Facebook post — which was the main reason for the contempt action — should have been first sent to a proper Bench of judges for preliminary review.
Instead, the single judge directly began the contempt proceedings, framed charges, gave notice, and only after that referred the matter to the Chief Justice — which was not correct under the rules.
The Division Bench agreed with this argument. It pointed out that Rule 9 of the 1971 Rules requires all contempt matters to be placed before an appropriate Division Bench. Also, any notice issued must be in Form 1 and should include all supporting documents. But these steps were not followed in Rajesh’s case.
So, the Court found that the contempt case was started in the wrong legal manner and decided to close the case by accepting Rajesh’s discharge application.
This controversy started on July 5, when Rajesh posted something on Facebook where he said that some court judgments in education-related cases were influenced by political bias.
In that post, he made claims that some judges, including those involved in the University Registrar suspension case, were supporting the Sangh Parivar, which is connected to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other Hindutva organisations.
Two days later, on July 7, Justice DK Singh (who has now been transferred to Karnataka High Court) reacted strongly. He said Rajesh did not just question the court decisions but had directly attacked judges with wild and unsubstantiated accusations. That’s when he started contempt proceedings against the former MLA.
After this, Rajesh filed an appeal against the contempt proceedings before a Division Bench of Justices Anil K Narendran and Muralee Krishna S.
He argued that only the Chief Justice or a judge designated by the Chief Justice can initiate contempt proceedings. He also claimed that a single judge cannot frame such charges directly.
But that Bench rejected his appeal. They said that the appeal was not maintainable because no punishment had been given yet and only charges were framed.
Later, Rajesh filed a fresh application asking for the case to be dropped completely, and that is what the Division Bench has now allowed.
CASE TITLE:
Suo Motu v R Rajesh.
Would You Like Assistance In Drafting A Legal Notice Or Complaint?
CLICK HERE
Click Here to Read Our Reports on Sangh
Click Here to Read Our Reports on R Rajesh
FOLLOW US ON YOUTUBE FOR MORE LEGAL UPDATES
