The contempt case initiated by the Supreme Court against activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan on Wednesday seemed to be veering around a settlement with the court offering him another opportunity to say “sorry” and get out of it.
The top court had initiated suo moto contempt proceedings against him in 2009 after an interview in a magazine questioning the hearing of Vedanta’s Orissa mining case by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia while holding shares in Sterlite, a group company of Vednata before his becoming the CJI and also raising questions on the “integrity” of at least 16 past Chief Justices.
Mr Bhushan’s counsel Ram Jethmalani pleaded for dropping of the contempt proceedings saying that it will neither serve the interest of judiciary nor his client.
Though a bench of justices Altamas Kabir, Cyriac Joseph and H.L. Dattu was receptive to Mr Jethmalani’s pleading, but the issue stuck on the mode of settlement as the top court wanted Mr Bhushan to express “sorry” while Mr Jethmalani said his client was ready to express “regret”.
As Mr Jethmalani, after consulting Mr Bhushan, offered to take up the matter with amicus curie Harish Salve, who is conducting the proceedings, the bench gave him time till September 6 to “come up with something positive”.
“We have been saying (about settlement) from the very beginning,” Justice Kabir, heading the bench, said.