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Comedian Kunal Kamra charged with contempt of court over tweets

Mumbai-based well-known comedian Kunal Kamra has been charged with contempt of court due to his chain of tweets posted after the Supreme Court gave the orders passing the interim bail plea of Arnab Goswami on 11th November.

The charges were pressed after some advocates presented their objections to Attorney General KK Venugopal through emails and attachments of the stand-up comedian tweets where he called SC as the “Supreme joke” of the country along with other series of criticism.

The attorney gave his approval to the eight people who wanted Kunal Kamra to be behind the bars over his alleged contempt, terming it under the criminal section.

In a reply to the request submitted by the prosecuting parties, the attorney said “it is time” for people to realize that “attacking the Supreme Court unjustifiably and brazenly will lead to punishment.”

He further said Mr. Kamra’s tweets were not just wrong but also “clearly crossed the line between humour and contempt.”

Mr. Venugopal went on and underlined the specific tweet which he claimed to be inappropriate through the “gross insinuation” against the top court and the judges. He stated, “Today people boldly and brazenly condemn the Supreme Court and its judges in what they believe is freedom of speech.”

The consent came within 24 hours after Chandni Shah, Shirang Katneshwarkar and another lawyer emailed the attorney, asking them to take cognizance of the alleged insults. In an email, Chandni Shah called the tweets a “mediocrity and blatant insult” of the judges who passed the order for Arnab’s bail.

The outrage took flight after Kunal Kamra posted a series of comments on twitter following Goswami’s bail of Wednesday. The Republican TV editor had been arrested by the Maharashtra police over the abetment to suicide case of Anvay Naik and his mother of 2018. Anvay blamed Goswami and 2 others for forcing him to take this step as the three had allegedly not paid their dues to Mr. Naik.

However, on November 11th, a vacation bench comprising of judges DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjeee gave the verdict in favour of Goswami after his petition was dismissed in High Court. While granting the interim bail order, the SC said that they are only body to protect the liberty and freedom of speech of the citizens.

The comedian, though, seemed to joking again through his tweets as even after the lawyers tweeted the emailed messages to the attorney, he wrote, “Are you lawyer or a failed copywriter This is for my tombstone “Kunal Kamra: Outrageous at least, and worrying at best.”

Chandni Shah had tweeted saying, “Mr. @kunalkamra88! Be ready to face the legal consequences for blatantly insulting the Apex Court of the country, Justice Chandrachud and Justice Indira Bannerjee, Adv. Harish Salve. Time for you to realise, that freedom of speech is NOT ABSOLUTE in this country.”

Kunal Kamra’s tweet that was ridiculed the most was- “DY Chandrachud is a flight attendant serving champagne to first class passengers after they’re fast tracked through, while commoners don’t know if they’ll ever be boarded or seated, let alone served.”

The comedian was banned from many airlines after his encounter with Goswami on an IndiGo flight where he constantly kept asking the mum journalist for answers in a way typical of Goswami on Republic TV.