SC extends stay on ex-IPS officer’s sentence on Dhoni’s contempt plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has extended the interim stay on the 15-day simple imprisonment handed to retired IPS officer G Sampath Kumar by the Madras High Court in a contempt of court case filed by former cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

A bench of Justices A S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan has listed the matter for hearing on May 3.

“Interim order shall continue till further orders,” the bench said on Thursday.

The high court had, on December 15 last year, found Kumar guilty of committing criminal contempt and sentenced him to simple imprisonment for 15 days.

In his contempt petition, Dhoni had sought punishment for Kumar for his remarks against the judiciary in a written statement filed in response to a Rs 100-crore defamation suit.

Dhoni had moved the court in 2014 against the former police officer for naming him in the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting scam.

In its order, the high court had said Kumar had consciously made an attempt to scandalise and lower the authority of this court and the Supreme Court. It was established that an affidavit or pleading presented by a party before a court was an act of publication.

Kumar, by his specific words, had launched an indecent attack on the judiciary, with an intention to scandalise and undermine the dignity and majesty of this court as well as the apex court, the high court had said, stating that the general comment against the court for issuing an interim order was unfair and constituted an abuse of legal process.