The Supreme Court of India on Friday issued a contempt notice to its former judge Markandey Katju for his blog in which he criticised the apex court judges in the infamous Soumya rape case. The SC had summoned him to explain himself over his Facebook post where he had hit out at the judges for the sentence in the Soumya rape and murder case.
This is the first time that an apex court has issued a contempt of court notice against a former judge. The SC has summoned Katju to ‘debate’ over who is right – him or the court.
Before going for the hearing on Friday, Katju had tweeted that he was confident that the judges had erred while making the judgement.
I was awake half the night preparing Soumya's case in which I will be appearing at 2 p.m. today in the Supreme Court.
— Markandey Katju (@mkatju) November 11, 2016
On going through the papers I am even more convinced that the SC made a grave error in holding the accused Govindachamy not guilty of murder
— Markandey Katju (@mkatju) November 11, 2016
Criticising the Bench’s judgement, Katju had called the verdict a “grave error” not expected of “judges who had been in the legal world for decades.” “Even a student of law in a law college knows this elementary principle that hearsay evidence is inadmissible,” Justice Katju had written on the blog.
The SC had commuted the death sentence of convict Govindachamy in the case to a seven-year jail term after dropping the murder charge against him. A bench of headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi upheld charges under sections 376 (punishment for rape), 394 (Voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) and 325 (Punishment for voluntarily causing grievous hurt) of the Indian Penal Code.
Here is what Justice Katju had written in his blog:
