Delhi HC Discharges Gurumurthy in Contempt Petition Over Tweets Against Justice Muralidhar

The Delhi High Court on Thursday discharged RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy in a criminal contempt of court petition that was filed against him for his tweets directed at Justice S Muralidhar.

A Division Bench, comprising Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Gaurang Kanth, discharged Gurumurthy after acknowledging that he had filed a written reply in the case and personally expressed remorse.

The Court’s order stated, “We accept Mr Gurumurthy’s apology and his expression of deep remorse for the incident in question, and deem it appropriate to discharge the show cause notice issued to him in this contempt petition.”

The case pertains to a speculative tweet by Gurumurthy, where he questioned whether Justice Muralidhar had served as a junior to former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram. A bench led by Justice Muralidhar took note of the tweet and clarified that he had never worked as a junior to Chidambaram.

The Court also stated that it was up to the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) at that time, Tushar Mehta, and the Bar to decide whether such tweets warranted action in accordance with the law.

Consequently, the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) filed a criminal contempt petition against Gurumurthy in 2018. Today, the Court observed that the matter had been pending for five years and suggested that both sides should put an end to the issue.

Senior Advocate Rakesh Tiku represented the DHCBA and informed the Bench that Gurumurthy’s apology could be considered by the Court, leading to the closure of the case.

Taking this into account, the Bench referred to Gurumurthy’s apology and acknowledged his voluntary appearance before the Court.

“We emphasize that we have not expressed any opinion on the legal issues put forth by the Senior Counsel representing the parties, and these matters are left open for determination in an appropriate proceeding,” the bench stated.