Contempt of court is a funny phrase in India. The courts use it to reiterate to the errant citizens and people in power that the courts must be respected and any insinuation that they are inept or wrong will be strictly dealt with.
The problem is that the biggest culprits, the politicians in power, usually do not have to go through such a bother. Yet common citizens are the ones who get the most contempt of court notices, or so it seems to my naked eye. Earlier today, the Supreme Court sentenced four people, including three journalists of the Mid Day newspaper to four months in prison for bringing the court into disrepute. The newspaper had run a story that said that the former Chief Justice of India, Justice YK Sabharwal, had benefited his son by his rulings on the sealing drive in New Delhi. The newspaper had also run a cartoon on the issue. The cartoonist bore the court's wrath as well.
Personally, I am a big fan of the Supreme Court, and firmly believe that they are the one wall between the politicians and their desire to sell this country out. But this is just a murder of our constitutional right of freedom of speech.
Slander is one thing, and yes, media does have a lot of personal vendetta, but here, the person in question was not the CJI anymore, but retired, and once retired, he does come under the purview of public scrutiny.
The fact is that the entire functioning of the shitty city of New Delhi is one huge conundrum, and it will take more than a Supreme Court order to set things right. In fact, I don't think things can ever be set right in this country. And its no lie that the judiciary is also steeped in corruption, if not as much as as in the polity, but its there nonetheless.
As for the media, while I agree with them this time, they are not above my contempt because of their utter lack of understanding of national issues.
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