HC initiates contempt proceedings against Chennai journalist

The Delhi High Court on Monday initiated contempt proceedings against Swaminathan Gurumurthy, Editor of a Chennai-based Tamil weekly news magazine "Thuglak", for his tweets against sitting judge Justice S. Muralidhar.

Taking suo motu cognisance of the issue, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Yogesh Khanna has asked Gurumurthy, who is also a Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s part-time non-official Director, to file a response on the contempt proceedings.

The court has listed the matter for further hearing on December 11.

The court order came after receiving a letter from advocate Rajshekhar Rao, who sought contempt action against the scribe and requested to remove the tweets and online video against the judge.

Gurumurthy had shared a tweet alleging bias by Justice Muralidhar while delivering an order on October 1.

On October 1, a division bench headed by Justice Muralidhar set aside a lower court order allowing the Maharashtra Police to take Navlakha to Pune and said Navlakha's detention had exceeded 24 hours which was "untenable" in law.

--IANS

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