Vivek Agnihotri tenders unconditional apology to Delhi High Court for remark against Justice S Muralidhar

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri on Tuesday expressed unconditional apology to the Delhi High Court for his remarks against former Delhi High Court judge and current Chief Justice of Orissa High Court, Justice S Muralidhar. .An affidavit to that effect was filed by Agnihotri withdrawing his statement against the judge and tendering his apology.A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh, however, insisted that Agnihotri remain present personally in court for the hearing.It, therefore, deferred the hearing after recording the submission of Agnihotri's counsel that the film director shall remain personally present for the next hearing on March 16, 2023 to tender his apology."We are asking him (Agnihotri) to remain present because he is the contemnor. Does he have any difficulty if he has to express remorse in person? The remorse cannot always be expressed by way of an affidavit," the Court remarked.Agnihotri had put out tweets alleging bias against Justice S Muralidhar as the judge had granted relief to activist Gautam Navlakha in thye Bhima Koregain case.Pursuant to the tweets, contempt of court proceedings were initiated against Agnihotri.The Court had in September this year decided to proceed ex-parte against Agnihotri and against other contemnors, Anand Ranganathan and Swarajya magazine, an online news portal after noting that the contemnors were not represented.Agnihotri then filed an affidavit expressing his unconditional apology. He also moved an application to recall the order of ex-parte hearing and seeking permission to participate in the proceedings. Agnihotri in his affidavit said that he himself had deleted his tweets against the judge..When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, the Amicus Curiae Senior Advocate Arvind Nigam pointed out that that the submission by Agnihotri could be wrong since as per Twitter's affidavit, it might be the social media platform which deleted Agnihotri's tweets and not Agnihotri himself. The Court eventually deferred the hearing after Agnihotri's counsel told the Court that the contemnor will remain personally present for next hearing.