A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi slammed reports of a high court judge receiving threats for his remarks against the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Karnataka and shared a video of the part of court proceedings during which the judge had said he was threatened with transfer, a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) worker on Wednesday complained to the registrar general of the Karnataka high court (HC)
The complainant identified as Girish Bharadwaj has filed a complaint against Gandhi’s decision to use the clippings of a sitting judge’s oral observation.
“Sir, I write this letter to bring this to your notice on the sharing of a video by Congress National President Shri Rahul Gandhi, where Hon’ble Mr Justice HP Sandesh is seen making remarks. He has shared the video by tweeting from his official Twitter account. Sir, the live stream should not be reproduced, transmitted, uploaded, posted, modified, published or re-published in any form,” the complaint by Bharadwaj read. Bharadwaj’s Twitter bio identifies him as a swayamsevak, entrepreneur, associated with the digital wing of the VHP.
The Wayanad MP had posted the 1.42 minute long video on his Twitter.
“A HC judge has been threatened for exposing BJP’s corrupt govt in Karnataka. Institution after institution is being bulldozed by the BJP. Each of us must stand with those fearlessly doing their duty,” Gandhi said in his post with the #DaroMat.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, court proceedings can be seen on live links on the court website.
Bharadwaj said that any unauthorised usage of the live stream will be punishable under the Indian Copyright Act, IT Act and other provisions of law, including the law of contempt.
“This act of Mr Gandhi is a concerted attack on the judiciary for petty political gains and to gain electoral dividends. This mala fide & motivated action has to be dealt in accordance with the law. I request your good self to take cognizance of this act, which is not just contempt of court but also an insult to our constitution, and initiate further legal action in accordance with the law,” the complaint read. “The video which has come out is in the public domain and it is a public document which lakhs of people have already seen. Rahul Gandhi was also shocked on what is going on in Karnataka. So he referred to this in his tweet,” DK Shivakumar, the state president of Congress in Karnataka, said.
Justice HP Sandesh on Monday had made a claim of receiving an indirect threat of transfer for calling the ACB a “collection centre”.
Talking about the it further, the judge had claimed that he was given an indirect threat of transfer if he continued to monitor the progress of a case involving a senior IAS officer in Bengaluru.
The judge was referring to the investigations being carried out by the ACB in a case involving deputy commissioner, Bengaluru (Urban) J Manjunath.
He was hearing a case filed by a deputy tehsildar PS Mahesh for allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹5 lakh in a matter related to a land dispute.
In the case relating to the IAS officer, the judge equated corruption to “cancer” and said that he will protect the independence of the judiciary at all costs from such threats.
“Your ADGP is so powerful… Some person spoke to one of our high court judges. The judge came and sat with me and he says, giving an example of transferring one of the judge to some other district…I will not hesitate to mention the name of the judge also (sic),” the judge said.
The video has been shared several times on social media to target the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government in Karnataka.
This article first appeared in hindustantimes.com