Gujarat High Court
The Gujarat High Court has started contempt proceedings by taking automatic cognizance against a person. Please tell that this matter was on June 20. When a person attended the toilet seat and attended the virtual hearing. The incident happened when Justice Nirjar S Desai was hearing a case related to a check bounce. The video of this incident became increasingly viral on social media, which questioned the dignity of the court.
A division bench of Justice AS Supehia and Justice RT Vachani took a serious stand on the matter on 30 June. The court in its order directed the High Court Registry that contempt proceedings should be started against the person seen in the video. This order was uploaded on 3 July. The court said that this video is tarnishing the image of the court and it should be removed from social media immediately.
The court demanded to create a mechanism to stop such activities
The bench also directed the Information and Technology Registrar to suggest mechanisms to prevent such disorganized behavior in the virtual hearing. The court noticed that such undisciplined acts are happening frequently, which are damaging the dignity of the judicial process. Due to which the court took cognizance in this case so that there are no such acts in future.
That person should come and prove why not to give him: HC
The order said that the registry should issue a notice to the person who has done this action. He has to tell why not sue and punishment against him under Section 2 (C) of the contempt Act, 1971. The next hearing of this case will be held after two weeks. According to the court, the person seen in the video is Abdul Samad, who is a resident of Kim village of Surat. He was a complainant in a criminal case and was involved in a petition to cancel the first Information Report (FIR). In the video, he appeared sitting in a toilet wearing Bluetooth earphones and later attended the hearing from a separate room.
Cases of such activities have come before
The Gujarat High Court started the facility of virtual hearing since the Kovid-19 epidemic. Which is made live stream on YouTube. However, this is not the first time that indiscipline has been observed in the virtual hearing. In March, the court imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on a person for attending the hearing from a toilet and ordered him to do community service. In April, another person was caught smoking cigarettes during video conferencing, for which a fine of Rs 50,000 was imposed, the court has repeatedly emphasized that it is necessary to maintain the same discipline and respect in the virtual hearing, which is in physical hearing.
