No suo motu contempt case registered against journalist Rajdeep Sardesai: SC clarifies

The Supreme Court on Tuesday clarified that it has not registered a suo motu criminal contempt case against journalist Rajdeep Sardesai for his tweets.

The clarification came after news reports talking about the suo moto criminal contempt proceeding against Sardesai by the Supreme Court on a petition by one Aastha Khurana started doing the rounds.

"It is made clear that no such proceeding has been initiated against Sardesai," an official said.

The case was shown as registered on the SC website inadvertently and appropriate action to rectify it was under process, he added in a note.

In September last year, Attorney General K K Venugopal had declined to give consent to initiate criminal contempt against Sardesai on a request by Khurana.

However, she filed a petition in the top court, which was shown on the Supreme Court website as having been registered on February 13.

The petitioner cited several tweets by Sardesai, published in August 2020, including the one where he had criticized the one-rupee penalty imposed on advocate Prashant Bhushan in a contempt of court case.