Arguments against Contempt of Court

♤ Contempt of Court proceedings have the effect of muzzling free speech guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution.

♤ Article 19(2) includes ‘contempt of court’ as a reasonable restriction on free speech but its

justification in its present form is not tenable in a democracy.

♤ Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava in the Constituent Assembly said that powers to reprimand contempt concerned only actions such as the disobedience of an order or direction of a court, which were already punishable infractions.

♤ Speech in criticism of the courts, ought not to be considered as contumacious, for it would simply open up the possibility of gross judicial abuse of such powers; which has now been proved true in many instances.

♤ Interestingly, in England, whose laws of contempt we have adopted, there hasn’t been a

single conviction for scandalizing the court in more than eight decades.