Tends To Interfere With Administration Of Justice: Delhi High Court Initiates Criminal Contempt Proceedings Against Lawyer For Calling Judiciary "Corrupt"

The Delhi High Court initiated criminal contempt proceedings against a Lawyer for making scandalous imputations against the judiciary and calling it “corrupt”.

The Bench of Justice Amit Sharma observed, “Perusal of the contents and averments made in the aforesaid reply to SCN filed by the respondent as well as email dated 21.01.2024 shows that reckless allegations of corruption in judiciary has been made by him which are contemptuous, contumacious and scandalous in nature. The same tantamount to scandalising and lowering the authority of Court. It further tends to interfere with judicial proceedings and administration of justice.”

Advocate Sumitra Choudhary represented the Petitioners.

Case Brief

A Petition was filed under r Section 2(b) read with Sections 11 & 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 read with Articles 215/226 of the Constitution of India against the Respondent for deliberate wilful disobedience and open flouting of the order passed by the Civil Judge.

Later, another Application was also filed by the Petitioner seeking stringent action against the respondent for aggravated contempt for violating the order of the High Court passed in the contempt proceedings and for making scandalous imputations against the judiciary.

Court’s Observation

At the outset, the High Court noted that the Respondent tendered an unconditional apology for making allegations against Judicial Officers.

Pertinently, the High Court reproduced the reply filed by the Respondent to a show cause notice which reads, “That the corrupt judiciary by making orders will transform the goat into the lion and lion into the goat in India. One day some influential Civil judge/MM will declare Bharat/India as Pakistan than the victim or the affected party will file appeal after appeal and then thereafter 50 years later the highest court either in curative petition or in review petition will rectify the mistake of the same influential civil judge/MM and then again, the victim turned to be real victim as the victim after 50 years stand at zero and will ready for another 50 years for getting relief from the courts, Or perhaps the victim if not having money or courage to fight or not having time to fight for his right due to his livelihood, not filed any appeal before appellate authority than by the order influential Civil judge/MM for victim only Bharat/India is Pakistan as the order is not appealed before any court thus become final & operative as per Indian Law.”

The High Court observed that reckless allegations of corruption in the judiciary have been made by the Respondent which are contemptuous, contumacious and scandalous in nature. The Court also said that the same lowers the authority of the Court and interferes with judicial proceedings and administration of justice.

The Court held, “In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the present case, after perusing the material placed on record in the present petition, this Court, prima facie, is of the opinion that the respondent has, thus, committed “criminal contempt” as defined in Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.”

Accordingly, the High Court listed the matter before the Division Bench on November 19, 2025 for further proceedings against the Respondent.

Cause Title: Gunjan Kumar V. Vedant

Appearance:

Petitioner: Advocates Sumitra Choudhary, M.K. Raghav Raman, Nitya Sharma, Jasmine Sheikh, Mansi Aggarwal

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