'Need to protect judges...' SC upholds conviction of lawyer who threatened lady counsel in Delhi High Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court said there is a need to maintain the dignity and reputation of judicial officers, and to protect them from motivated, libellous and unfounded allegations, as it upheld the conviction of a practising advocate and a former Army personnel for contempt of court.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P S Narasimha, however, modified the sentence of three months jail awarded to appellant advocate Gulshan Bajwa. Taking note of his age and certain medical ailments, they kept it till the rising of the court.

The court on Tuesday dismissed the appeal by holding that the finding of the conviction in the case warranted no interference, in view of the appellant’s conduct before the High Court and for that matter, even before the apex court, which amounted to undermining the system of the law and interfering with the course of administering justice.

The Delhi High Court was correct in not accepting the apology tendered by the appellant since it was not bonafide and lacked in sincerity, apart from being belated and a mere ‘lip service’, the top court ruled.

"The High Court observed a pattern in the behaviour of the appellant. He has had a habit of misbehaving with a bench which is not agreeing with him. The misbehaviour goes to the extent of casting aspersions and threatening the judges hearing the matters," the bench said.

With regard to the apology tendered by the advocate, the bench said that the High Court had correctly rejected it.

"An apology must evidence remorse with respect to the contemptuous acts and is not to be used as a weapon to purge the guilty of their offence. Further, an apology lacking in sincerity and not evidencing contriteness, cannot be accepted," the bench said.

The appellant was held in contempt of court by the Delhi High Court in 2006 for issuing a threat to a lady counsel after seeking adjournment in a matter.

"This is a long-drawn case in which the appellant has been committing successive acts of contempt. There are about seven instances which the High Court has taken into account, where the conduct of the appellant came under scrutiny in different proceedings. In all those cases, the egregious act of contempt of the appellant was recorded," the bench noted.

The appellant raised several contentions including that judges were biased against him, no notice was served upon him and the threat to the lady counsel was nothing but an elderly advice.

"Even here, the appellant is trying to resort to forum shopping by asking us to refer the matter to a judge who had issued notice in a connected matter. The appellant has failed to see that notice in the lead matter was issued more than a decade and half ago," the bench said.