SC disposes of Shobha De's plea against assembly privilege notice

The Supreme Court on Friday disposed of the plea by socialite and author Shobhaa De challenging the breach of privilege notice by Maharashtra assembly for criticising the state government's decision to screen Marathi films at multiplexes at prime time.

A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C. Pant disposed of the plea by the author as it was told that the state assembly has accepted her reply to this privilege notice and nothing was left in the matter.

Staying the breach of privilege notice on the plea by De, the apex court had on October 14 asked her to reply that her tweets had "remotely nothing" to do with anything related to the assembly or its proceedings.

"To put the controversy at rest, we require the petitioner (De) to file a reply before the 1st Respondent (Maharashtra assembly) stating that whatever she had stated has remotely nothing to do with the conduct of the Maharashtra state legislative assembly.

"The said reply shall be filed within a fortnight hence," it said, adding: "Needless to say, filing of such a reply is without prejudice to the contentions raised in the writ petition."

The privilege notice was issued against De on a complaint by Shiva Sena member Pratap Sarnaik who had contended that a series of tweets by her had hurt the Marathi people and their language.