New Delhi: Lending a breather to suspended IPS officer Jacob Thomas, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed the contempt of court proceedings the Kerala High Court initiated suo motu. The decision of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan comes on Mr Thomas's petition to quash the proceedings initiated on March 20 by its registrar general on the chief justice’s orders. The Bench after hearing senior counsel Dushyant Dave and Harris Beeran for the petitioner and senior counsel V. Giri for the HC issued a notice seeking its response. On March 16, the HC held that prima facie his complaint to the Central Vigilance Commission tantamount to criminal contempt defined by the Contempt of Courts Act.
It has so proceeded after finding that he had asked the CVC to initiate an enquiry against two of its judges. Denying these charges, he said the complaint was not against the judges, whose names were mentioned to show that they heard certain high profile matters. He complained to the CVC against the prosecution not pursuing high profile cases of corruption involving politicians and bureaucrats suitably and sought an investigation. The complaint was clearly against the prosecutors and the investigators who are misleading the judicial system in such cases.
He submitted that in very unequivocal terms he had mentioned that he did not intend to cast any allegations or aspersions against them and that what he clearly intended by the complaint was an enquiry into the way the investigators had handled such cases and conducted the prosecution. The petitioner had not even remotely alleged anything, let alone casting any aspersions, against the judges.
The petitioner had mentioned the names of the judges in the said complaint because these judges had heard those corruption cases. The HC by its March 16 order had already found prima facie that the petitioner has in fact committed criminal contempt by filing the complaint on Feb 26. He said the HC ought to have read it as a whole and taken the view that no allegations were made against them. He prayed for quashing the proceedings and an interim stay till the disposal of the SLP.
