Observing that the facility to punish for felony contempt will not be a “private armour” for judges to stifle criticism, the Supreme Courtroom on Wednesday (December 10, 2025) put aside an April 23 order of the Bombay Excessive Courtroom that had held a Navi Mumbai girl responsible of felony contempt and sentenced her to at least one week’s easy imprisonment for circulating a housing society discover referring to judges as a part of a “canine mafia.”
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta famous that the girl had expressed unconditional regret on the earliest stage and had tendered an unqualified apology for her conduct.
“In train of contempt jurisdiction, courts should stay acutely aware that this energy will not be a private armour for judges, nor a sword to silence criticism. In spite of everything, it requires fortitude to acknowledge contrition for one’s lapse, and an excellent larger advantage to increase forgiveness to the erring. Mercy, due to this fact, should stay an integral a part of the judicial conscience, to be prolonged the place the contemnor sincerely acknowledges his lapse and seeks to atone for it”, the ruling stated.
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The judges additional noticed {that a} holistic studying of Part 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 (1971 Act), makes it clear that the supply not solely authorises the imposition of punishment but in addition expressly preserves the court docket’s energy to remit it. This discretion, the Bench underscored, survives even after a discovering of guilt and the award of punishment.
“The statutory scheme is thus clear, as soon as repentance is demonstrated, the court docket could act with magnanimity. Nevertheless, the apology should be bona fide and should fulfill the judicial conscience of the court docket, which is required to train this discretion judiciously”, the Bench stated.
Earlier, the Excessive Courtroom had taken suo motu cognisance of a round issued in January by the girl, Vineeta Srinandan, cultural director of Mumbai’s Seawoods Estates Restricted, noting that the remarks it contained have been supposed to hinder the administration of justice and intrude with the due course of judicial proceedings. The round was issued whereas a case in regards to the feeding of stray canines within the Seawoods complicated was pending earlier than the Excessive Courtroom, during which residents had challenged the validity of Rule 20 of the Animal Beginning Management Guidelines, 2023. The rule obligates resident welfare associations and condo proprietor associations to create designated areas for feeding stray animals. The Seawoods complicated homes over 1,500 residents in Navi Mumbai.
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The Excessive Courtroom had held that the round carried “severe insinuations” in opposition to judges of the Excessive Courtroom and the Supreme Courtroom, and rejected Ms. Srinandan’s competition that she was unaware of the implications of issuing such remarks. It had additionally declined to simply accept her apology, discovering that it didn’t exhibit contrition or real regret. Consequently, the court docket had imposed a effective of ₹2,000 and directed that she bear imprisonment for a interval of 1 week.
Deprecating the method adopted by the Excessive Courtroom, the apex court docket noticed that it had did not train its contempt jurisdiction with the requisite circumspection, notably since Ms. Srinandan had, from the very first day of her look within the suo motu proceedings, expressed regret and tendered an unconditional apology.
It additional famous that Part 12 of the 1971 Act clarifies that an apology needn’t be rejected merely as a result of it’s certified or conditional, as long as it’s tendered bona fide. The statutory framework, it stated, recognises that after a contemnor affords honest regret, the court docket is empowered to simply accept it and, the place acceptable, discharge the contemnor or remit the sentence imposed.
“In our opinion, within the absence of any materials suggesting that the apology was missing in bona fides, the Excessive Courtroom should have thought-about remitting the sentence in accordance with legislation,” the Bench stated, setting apart the order of the Excessive Courtroom.
In its 21-page ruling, the Excessive Courtroom had noticed that though Part 12 of the 1971 Act prescribes a punishment of as much as 6 months or a effective of as much as ₹2,000, or each, for the offence, it had imposed a comparatively shorter sentence on Ms. Srinandan. In our clear opinion, the contemnor has taken each alternative to justify, on deserves, the circumstances during which she issued such objectionable writing, whereas concurrently reciting the apology mantra. We don’t settle for any apology that doesn’t mirror contrition or real regret. Such an apology, in our view, is merely a defensive weapon superior within the perception that the contemnor can escape the implications by its recital,” the Excessive Courtroom had recorded in its order.
Revealed – December 10, 2025 07:17 pm IST
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