SC bars lawyer from practising for a year in contempt case

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 27

The Supreme Court on Wednesday awarded three-month jail term to an advocate in a contempt case but kept the sentence suspended, if he refrained from browbeating judges.

A Bench of Justice RF Nariman and Justice Vineet Sharan—which had held advocate Mathews J Nedumpara guilty of contempt earlier this month—debarred him from practising before the Supreme Court for a year.

The order to suspend the sentence came after he tendered an unconditional apology and undertaking that he will never attempt to browbeat any judge either in the Supreme Court or the Bombay High Court.

A good number of advocates were present in the court where the court heard him and his counsel Subhash Jha.

The contemnor advocate had attempted to browbeat judges in a case related to designating advocates as ‘senior advocate’ during hearing of a PIL by National Lawyers Campaign for Judicial Transparency and Reforms challenging the system of designation of lawyers as ‘senior advocates’. He had taken the name of senior advocate Fali S Nariman to allege that relatives of judges were being designated as ‘senior advocates’.

The Bench also issued notice to Nedumpara and three others in a fresh contempt case for allegedly scandalising the judiciary by leveling scandalous allegations against both the judges of the Bench in a letter to the CJI.

It requested Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi to constitute an appropriate Bench to hear the fresh contempt case against Nedumpara and three others.

On March 12, the top court had held Nedumpara guilty of contempt for taking a senior lawyer’s name to allege that sons and daughters of judges were given priority in designating them as ‘senior advocates’.

“Conduct of this kind deserves punishment which is severe,” it had said.

“We are of the view that the only reason for taking the senior advocate’s name, without there being any relevance to his name in the present case, is to browbeat the court and embarrass one of us...

Nedumpara had “mis-conducted himself repeatedly” before the Debt Recovery Tribunal, Bombay and the Bombay High Court and was in the habit of terrorising Tribunal members and using intemperate language to achieve his ends, it had noted.