Allahabad High Court: In a contempt case against an Advocate practising at District Court, the division bench of Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Vinod Diwakar, JJ. issued contempt notice to the Advocate for stalking and sending obnoxious and disturbing messages to the judicial officer on her Facebook account.
The Single Judge, while hearing a bail cancellation application, has directed the Registry to place this matter before the appropriate Bench for taking suo motu cognizance of criminal contempt committed by the Advocate.
In the present case, the contemnor has sent obnoxious and disturbing messages and cast indecent remarks on the judicial officer on her Facebook account. After the officer blocked the contemnor, he started coming to the Court of the judicial officer. He would sit in her Court without any work, gazing at her continuously. The officer has stated that it became difficult for her to concentrate on her work and to perform the work assigned to her. When no other alternative was left, she lodged a first information report against the Advocate.
The Court, after examining the facts mentioned in the bail cancellation order, said that prima facie it shows that the act of the Advocate amounts to criminal contempt referred to in Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 for levelling baseless insulting allegations, scandalizing and undermining the authority and dignity of the Court.
[Abhay Pratap, In re, 2023 SCC OnLine All 136, decided on 04-04-2023]
