Prashant Bhushan (pictured), noted civil liberties lawyer has agreed to spare not one but '10 words of regret' to Chief Justice of India S. H. Kapadia. He has agreed to sit with Supreme Court’s 'friend' and Senior Advocate Harish Salve to find a way out of the contempt proceedings he is facing after he alleged in an interview to Tehelka magazine that eight of the last 16 Chief Justices of India were corrupt.

Harish Salve had initiated contempt proceedings against Bhushan on the ground that in an interview with Tehelka, Bhushan had made certain statements regarding then Supreme Court Justice Kapadia’s interest in a matter relating to Sterlite Industries, allegedly implying judicial impropriety in Justice Kapadia’s behaviour.

According to media reports, Bhushan did clarify before a Special three-judge bench led by Justice Altamas Kabir that his remarks against CJI Kapadia was “misconstrued”. Bhushan, however, had refused the court’s suggestion in December 2010 to apologise for the alleged remarks and close the chapter on the contempt proceedings in the Supreme Court.

The former Law Minister, Shanti Bhushan also intervened in the matter and told the Court that he would rather face imprisonment than apologise for levelling corruption charges against the higher echelons of the Indian judiciary. Although, the Supreme Court had already brushed aside his application to be impleaded as a party in the contempt proceedings pending against Prashant Bhushan.

Prashant Bhushan had filed a supplementary affidavit in September 2010, in the contempt petition. In the affidavit the Senior Advocate gave ‘evidence’ which in his opinion proved the corruption charges levied by him. Most of the ‘evidence’ was in the form of inferences drawn from judgements and statements regarding the houses, lands and other amenities that had been accorded to the judges who were part of the bench deciding these cases.

However, in the affidavit Prashant Bhushan did make it clear that when he called into question current CJI S.H. Kapadia’s involvement in the Vedanta matter, he was not referring to the financial integrity of the CJI but merely that the judgement passed by him was questionable since he held Vedanta shares.

In yesterday’s hearing before the Supreme Court Senior Advocate Ram Jethmalani appearing on behalf of Bhushan chose to open the session with a rather mellow remark that “there was so much embarrassing material in circulation”, prompting Justice Kabir to cut in and remind him that all the Supreme Court had ever wanted from Bhushan was a word of apology, according to Indian Express.

Justice Kabir said, “The apology is for the institution (Supreme Court) and not for ourselves”.

The Bench observed that “what you (Bhushan) have said, you have said, but this should stop here”. Referring to Bhushan’s defence of truth as a justification for his remarks, the Court said there was no need to delve into any details of the contempt case against the lawyer and “one word of regret” would do.

The next date of hearing is September 6, 2011. Till then we have to see if the legal luminaries can reach a solution to end this saga which has been going on for almost two years.