Andhra High Court initiates contempt against YSRC MP, ex-MLA and 47 others

The two cases pertain to some people posting messages in social media threatening a judge

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Tuesday initiated contempt proceedings against 49 individuals, including YSR Congress Lok Sabha member Nandigam Suresh and party leader and former MLA Amanchi Krishna Mohan for attributing motives to and intimidating judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court in abusive language, besides lowering the dignity of the institution of the High Court.

A division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Justice C. Praveen Kumar directed the government to issue notices to all the individuals, including eight whose identity has yet to be established. “All this shows that there is a larger conspiracy against the judges. It attracts contempt for scandalising and lowering the image of the court and judges,” the court felt.

Advocate General S Sriram, who went through the videos and social media posts, described the comments as unwarranted and scandalous. He gave his consent in writing to commence the proceedings proposed by the court.

A section of netizens have been resorting to mudslinging at the AP High Court ever since it struck down Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s dream proposal of making English the mandatory medium of instruction in government schools.

The situation turned ugly on May 22 when the HC pronounced orders handing over Dr Sudhakar’s case to the Central Bureau of Investigation, setting aside the suspension of senior cop A.B. Venkateswara Rao, seizing the premises of LG Polymers, initiating contempt against officials for painting the government offices with YCRC colours  and issuing notices to the government on sale of government land.

The principal Opposition party, Telugu Desam, demanded that the Chief Minister should step down on moral grounds as every decision of his was failing judicial scrutiny. Party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu, said the court gave orders against the government in at least 64 cases.

The High Court mentioned in its orders that video footage of Sakshi news channel revealed that the Bapatla MP attributed motives to the court stating that Naidu had been managing the High Court and that he came to know of the verdict either before it was pronounced or within 10 minutes of the order being issued.

The bench also referred to one Chendu Reddy’s tweet that ‘All judges shall be cut into pieces,’ and ‘All judges shall be kept in a room and a corona-positive patient should be left with them.’ It mentioned Kishore Reddy Dasari’s Facebook message that ‘All High Court judges are bastards, they are good for nothing except for sleeping with wives. Let them arrest me and order a CBI inquiry.”

In another case, the High Court issued notices to the state government asking it to explain why the Criminal Investigation Department had not made progress in the two First Information Reports (FIRs) filed on the complaint of the Registrar General of the High Court.

The two cases pertain to some people posting messages in social media threatening a judge with dire consequences for pronouncing an order against the government in the English medium for schools case. “He, however, is not part of the bench that delivered the verdict and, secondly, it is highly objectionable to make such comments,” said High Court standing counsel Ashwin Kumar.