S Gurumurthy’s tweet on Justice Muralidhar comes up for discussion in Supreme Court

The tweet by columnist and Chartered Accountant S Gurumurthy on Justice S Muralidhar of the Delhi High Court came up for discussion in the Supreme Court today during the hearing of the appeal filed by The Wire in the Jay Shah defamation case..Chief Justice Dipak Misra, who was hearing the case, made some remarks against reporting by electronic media..“Many times what they write amounts to contempt of court. Anyone can write anything about anyone?”, Misra J. asked.This triggered response from Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal, who was appearing for The Wire..“A person who is in Chennai wrote about a judge in Delhi alleging that the judge was a junior to one of the counsel. If Your Lordships are serious about contempt, then this Court should take action”, Sibal said..“The concerned judge already took action”, Misra J. responded..“No he did not, he did not”, retorted Sibal..The Delhi High Court had taken suo motu notice of certain tweets by S Gurumurthy relating to the decision of the Court to grant interim relief to Karti Chidambaram..Gurumurthy, who is the editor of the magazine ‘Thuglak’, through his tweets had asked whether Justice Muralidhar had been a junior to Karti Chidambaram’s father and Senior Advocate P Chidambaram..Justice Muralidhar observed that misinformation on social media spreads like wildfire and considered it necessary to place on record the correct facts. The Bench also took note of Gurumurthy’s substantial following on twitter. The Court observed,.“Being the editor of a magazine that has a wide readership in Tamil Nadu, had Mr. S. Gurumurthy cared to check, he could easily have ascertained that the presiding Judge of this Bench was as a junior of Mr. G. Ramswamy, who then was the Additional Solicitor General of India and who later was the Attorney General for India..At no time did the presiding Judge work as a junior to Mr. P. Chidambaram, Senior Advocate, the father of the Petitioner. It is unfortunate that despite some of the tweets in response clarifying the correct factual position, Mr. Gurumurthy chose not to withdraw his mischievous and false tweet.”.The Court, however, did not initiate contempt proceedings against Gurumurthy, but asked the Centre as to whether such posts can scandalize the legal profession and whether any remedial action needed to be taken. The Court observed,.“While a fair and informed critique of judgments and orders of the Courts is welcome, it is for the learned ASG and the Bar to consider whether such tweets call for action in accordance with law.”.Gurumurthy has since deleted the tweet in question..Gurumurthy (Image credit: Rediff)