Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice A S Bopanna & Justice V Ramasubramanian took a serious view of the letter which is considered as an attempt to forbid a citizen from approaching the Top Court in the course of exercising his fundamental right under Article 32 of the Constitution. The court also initiated a contempt proceeding against Vilas Athawale (Assistant Secretary, Maharashtra Vidhan Sachivalaya) saying that his letter expressed a threat which interfered with the administration of justice; to which Athawale replied with an apology and said that he only acted on orders of the speaker to send the letter.
Advocate Harish Salve appearing for Arnab drew the attention of SC to this letter. He on behalf of Goswami also challenged the breach of privilege notice to him on an MLA’s complaint accusing him of dishonourably referring to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The court has asked whether a notice should be sent to the Maharashtra speaker in contempt proceedings case who acted on the presiding officer’s instructions.
