Contempt plea filed in HC against lawyer convicted of assault

New Delhi: A retired district court judge on Tuesday urged the Delhi High Court to initiate contempt proceedings against a lawyer for interfering with the administration of justice after he was convicted of assaulting her when she was a lawyer and argued that no convict should be allowed to browbeat and bully the court.

A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup J Bambhani asked the former judge, Sujata Kohli, to place on record the relevant CCTV footage of the alleged incident within a week in order to enable the court to form a prima facie opinion in the contempt case, noting, "We are as concerned as anybody else with respect to how court proceedings have to be conducted and how decorum has to be maintained."

On October 29 last year, a trial court had convicted Delhi High Court Bar Association's (DHCBA) ex-president Rajiv Khosla in the assault case for offences punishable under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the India Penal Code (IPC).

Kohli had alleged that Khosla grabbed her by her hair and dragged her in August 1994. In her petition, she claimed that the trial court proceedings on the issue of sentencing were literally hijacked and obstructed by Khosla and his supporters.

"What follows after conviction is very sad and unfortunate. There were a series of acts done by the convict, an officer of the court and a leader of the Bar," Kohli told the court.

The convict/respondent (Khosla) has, by publishing material on social groups etc, collected mob support to strike work to boycott the concerned court and to be physically present with huge numbers of lawyers/ leaders in the courtroom, shouting slogans standing on chairs, calling the particular judge on his face as 'biased' and calling '95% of judges as being corrupt', the petition said.

All the acts and words of the convict/respondent in protest of the judgment of conviction, scandalized the Court, lowered its dignity in the public eye and was calculated to do so, it was meant to shake the faith of the people at large, in judicial institution, it added.

Kohli told the court that there was nothing personal left in the matter and she filed the present contempt case in furtherance of her duty as a citizen of this country. This is a matter that should have come from the (trial) court as a reference but it has been left to me, she said.

Chaos had erupted in a courtroom in Delhi's Tis Hazari court on November 30 last year with lawyers chanting slogans and standing atop tables and chairs as they awaited the pronouncement of order on sentencing in the assault case.

After the argument and chanting of more slogans, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Gajender Singh Nagar had directed Khosla to pay a total compensation of Rs 40,000 to the state and the victim in the case.

The matter will be heard next on February 16.