The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a contempt notice to a woman advocate for making “scandalous” allegations and issuing threats to implead judges as parties before the Supreme Court if her pending petition was not heard early.
Justice Harpreet Singh Brar, while passing the order, noted that the conduct of the advocate amounted to an “attempt at intimidating the adjudicatory authority,” which, prima facie, interfered with the judicial process and “undermines the dignity of the rule of law.”
The incident arose after the lawyer filed an application seeking to prepone the hearing of her pending case from October 31 to an earlier date. In her plea, she alleged that justice was being “deliberately and intentionally” denied to her by delaying the case, and claimed that her fundamental rights were being curtailed in an attempt to pressure her into withdrawing complaints against Punjab IPS officer Gurpreet Singh Bhullar.
She further threatened to implead the judges hearing her case as parties before the Supreme Court if the hearing date was not advanced.
The court found this conduct to be contemptuous. “The reckless allegations made by the petitioner were intended to bring disrepute to the justice administration system,” observed Justice Brar.
Justice Brar also noted that the petitioner is not a layperson but a qualified advocate, and therefore “it cannot be assumed that the said unceremonious behaviour stemmed from a lack of knowledge.”
“The unwarranted and unjustified challenge to the authority of the courts undermines the dignity of the rule of law,” the judge added. “Such scandalous remarks have the potential of shaking the very edifice of the judicial system, which would inevitably shake the faith of the public in the institution.”
The bench observed that there was nothing in the record to justify the advocate’s accusations. “In fact, not only has she failed to indicate how she was intentionally victimised in the matter at hand, but she also made scandalous remarks attacking the integrity of the justice dispensation mechanism,” Justice Brar stated.
The court issued a notice to the lawyer, directing her to file a response by August 29 as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against her.
