Prashant Bhushan Won't Apologise: "Would Be Contempt Of My Conscience"

Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan, held guilty of contempt for his tweets on Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and the Supreme Court, has refused to retract or apologise as the three-day time window given by the top court expired today. The tweets represented a bonafide belief that he holds and an apology, conditional or unconditional, would be insincere, Mr Bhushan told the court. Retracting now would be a "contempt of my conscience" and the court, said the lawyer-activist, who earlier said that would cheerfully accept punishment.

At the last hearing on Thursday, the court had sought an unconditional apology and gave the 63-year-old a few days to "reconsider" his statement.

"Don't just apply legal brain here," Justice Arun Kumar Mishra, who led the bench, had told Mr Bhushan, commenting that he had not convicted anyone of contempt in 24 years as a judge. But freedom of speech is not absolute, Justice Mishra said, adding, "You may do hundreds of good things, but that doesn't give you a license to do ten crimes".

Mr Bhushan said he would consult his lawyer but did not expect any "substantial change" in his stand.

"If I retract a statement before this court that I otherwise believe to be true offer an insincere apology, that in my eyes would amount to the contempt of my conscience and of an institution I hold in highest esteem," he told the three-judge bench hearing the case today.

"I have made the statements bonafide and pleaded truths with full details, which have not been dealt with by the court," he added.

In an earlier hearing of the case, Mr Bhushan had contended that he considered his tweets the "discharge of highest duty" and that open criticism is necessary to "safeguard the democracy and its values".

On August 3, Mr Bhushan told the court that he regretted only a "part" of what he tweeted and asserted that criticism of the top judge does not lower the authority of the court. The tweet in question accused Chief Justice SA Bobde of riding a motorcycle - he was photographed on a Harley Davidson in Nagpur last month - without a helmet and face mask, while keeping the court in lockdown and denying citizens their right to justice.

The other tweet was about four previous Chief Justices of India whom he accused of having a role in "destroying democracy".

"I believe that the Supreme Court is the last bastion of hope for the protection of fundamental rights, the watchdog institutions and indeed for constitutional democracy itself. It has rightly been called the most powerful court in the democratic world, and often an exemplar for courts across the globe," Mr Bhushan told the court today.