New Delhi:
Stand-up comic Kunal Kamra, facing contempt charges over his tweets criticizing the Supreme Court, said today that he would neither retract his posts nor apologise for them. He had attacked the top court for granting TV anchor Arnab Goswami reprieve after his arrest in an abetment to suicide case.
“I don’t intend to retract my tweets or apologise for them. I believe they speak for themselves,” the Mumbai-based comic tweeted.
He added: “No lawyers, no apology, no fine, no waste of space”.
No lawyers, No apology, No fine, No waste of space 🙏🙏🙏 pic.twitter.com/B1U7dkVB1W
— Kunal Kamra (@kunalkamra88) November 13, 2020
For his tweets directing anger and sarcasm at the country’s top court, Kunal Kamra has also been trolled.
Attorney General KK Venugopal, allowing eight people to file criminal contempt cases against Mr Kamra, said in a letter that he had crossed a line.
“It is time that people understand attacking the Supreme Court unjustifiably and brazenly will lead to punishment,” Mr Venugopal said in a letter replying to a lawyer who had asked his sanction to take Mr Kamra to court.
India’s top law officer, highlighting tweets that he believed were out of line with “gross insinuation” against the Supreme Court and its judges, remarked: “Today people boldly and brazenly condemn the Supreme Court and its judges in what they believe is freedom of speech.”
Law Student Shirang Katneshwarkar and two lawyers had written to the Attorney General about the comic’s tweet storm.
Mr Kamra has been outraging on Twitter over the Supreme Court granting interim bail to Arnab Goswami a week after his arrest over the suicide of an architect, Anvay Naik, and his mother in 2018. Judges DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee pulled up the Maharashtra government over the Republic TV anchor’s arrest and said: “If we as a constitutional court do not lay down law and protect liberty, then who will?”
In January this year, Mr Kamra was banned by several airlines after he heckled Arnab Goswami on an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Lucknow.
