Madurai: The former president of the Madras Bench of Madras High Court Advocate Association filed his counter on Wednesday pleading dismissal of the suo motu criminal contempt petition filed against him for his alleged involvement in disrupting court proceedings on September 16, 2015.
In the counter filed before the division bench comprising Justices V. Ramasubramanian and N. Kirubakaran, the advocate Peter Ramesh Kumar claimed that the criminal contempt filed against him was a motivated one.
Kumar also claims that the contempt notice showing the date as September 19, 2015 was also manipulated. The judge only signed the order on November 30, 2015, on the last day of his tenure as administrative judge of the Madurai Bench, he contended. He pleaded that the court dismiss the suo motu contempt as devoid of merits or conduct a full fledged trial by examining all the 17 listed court witnesses, including persons he included as witnesses in the petition.
“By the contemner or in the interest of justice refer this suo motu contempt proceeding to the Supreme Court of India,” he said. The bench posted the hearing to next week.
Kumar was alleged to have disrupted the court proceedings on September 16, 2015 when a section of lawyers protested at the court demanding declaration of Tamil as the official language of the court. When Justice Sudhakar intervened and warned the protesting lawyers of stern action, Kumar had reportedly challenged the court to take action against him if the court had the “guts.”
Kumar is one of 14 lawyers suspended by the Bar Council of India on September 22, 2015.
