Vijay Narayan does not grant consent for initiating criminal contempt proceedings against the editor of the Thuglak Magazine. The matter came into the limelight when S Gurumurthy made derogatory remarks concerning the High Court during an event conducted in January 2020.
Further, Advocate S Doraiswamy pushed for initiating such proceedings based on the allegation that S Gurumurthy dropped a comment that undermined the High Court judges and termed them ‘dishonest’ and ‘meritless’ at a speech delivered in January. To this, AG Narayan viewed that the statement made by S Gurumurthy was merely an impromptu response to a question asked during the session. And as per AG, there is no legal standing for criminal contempt against the editor.
On scrutinizing the speech given by S Gurumurthy, AG Narayan concluded that the remarks produced by S Gurumurthy merely indicated the systematic flaws and delays in the enquiry, investigation, legal process etc. and did not intend to tarnish the court or the Judiciary.
Lastly, AG said that S Gurumurthy made a regretful expression on the same over Twitter and clarified that the statement uttered was an accident and made in a haste manner. With this, the AG remarked that criminal contempt against S Gurumurthy, not be made.
