Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh high court has imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on an editor of a local Hindi daily after holding him guilty under the Contempt of Courts Act in connection with a news report targeting one of its sitting judges.
The division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Milind Ramesh Phadke held Suman Singh Sikarwar, editor of Dainik Chambal Vani, guilty under the Contempt of Courts Act while calling the news report published in the daily in 2011 against a sitting judge of the court, as an attempt by the editor to ‘scandalise the image of a judge of this court as well as other judges’.
The court imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on the editor while issuing a warning to him ‘to remain cautious in future’.
The court had taken suo motu cognizance of the front-paged story published in the daily ‘Dainik Chambal Vani’ in 2011 and initiated proceedings under the Contempt of Court Act.
The case was admitted for hearing in 2014 after its transfer from Jabalpur to Gwalior bench. It was finally heard on March 14 this year. The verdict in the case was delivered on May six.
The court has held that the news report was not in the nature of ‘mere dispassionate criticism of the judges, their working and their judgements ‘but contained intemperate language and undesirable expletives’.
“Thus, it appears that it was an intentional attempt made by the respondent-contemptor (the editor) to scandalise the image of a judge of this Court as well as other judges”, the court held.
The court observed that there was no ‘repentance of any kind on his (editor’s) face and just for the sake of apology, he had made a regretful acknowledgement of the offence, which appears to this court not bona fide’.
The court rejected the editor’s oral offer of unconditional apology and held him guilty under Contempt of Court Act.
