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28 Aug 2018 10:30am

SC stays one-month jail term awarded to advocate for Facebook post against HC order

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A Supreme Court bench Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan on Monday stayed a one-month jail term awarded to an advocate for allegedly writing a Facebook post criticising a judgement – passed by a judge of the Punjab and Haryana HC.

A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana HC had held Maneesh Vashistha, a Narnaul-based advocate, guilty of contempt of court and ordered him to serve jail term after he posted “contemptuous remarks” against an HC judge in connection with an order passed last year on the social networking site, Facebook.

However, Vashistha had denied having written any such post and filed a plea in the top court challenging the HC order.

In his plea, Vashistha has claimed that “the order is totally wrong, illegal, against law, against facts and is beyond record, arbitrary, lacking reasoning, summary and sketchy in nature and is based on surmises and conjectures and is thus liable to be quashed”.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, representing Vashistha, submitted before the SC bench that this was an unverified post on the social networking site which was later erased.

 “Experts have an opinion that this post can be doctored. The high court is wrong in holding him guilty of contempt of court,” Singh further said.

After hearing brief arguments on the matter, the bench said “Issue notice, returnable in four weeks. In the meantime, there shall be stay of the impugned order”.

 


Tagged: Order Sentencing Advocate Advocate Social Networking Site Facebook Punjab and Haryana High Court Supreme Court
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