The Supreme Court yesterday insisted on Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray paying the fine ordered by the Bombay High Court before taking up his appeal against his sentencing for committing contempt of court.
The apex court will hear his appeal on Thursday, if he pays Rs 4,000 in fine for committing the offence on two counts as the author of the statement and as the editor of Samna. He had stated at a public meeting that a judge had demanded Rs 35 lakh from a litigant for giving a favourable verdict. The Nagpur bench of the High Court last week sentenced him to pay fine immediately and undergo two weeks imprisonment.
But it suspended the sentence of jail so that he can appeal to the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice A M Ahmadi, who heard Thackray counsel P H Parekhs plea for an early hearing, observed that the court could not hear the appeal unless the fine was paid. Otherwise he would have to surrender first.
Normally we ask the accused to surrender, the judge said, and added, If the fine is not paid you will be in difficulties. Counsel then agreed to pay the fine before Thursday.
Along with Thackeray, two others have also moved the Supreme Court against the sentence. Subhash Desai, the printer and publisher of Samna, the mouthpiece of Shiv Sena, and Sanjay Raut, one its editors, also had been given the same sentence under the Contempt of Court Act for publishing the leaders statement.
Though the urgent application was heard by the bench of Chief Justice and Justice Sujata Manohar, it is not necessary that the main appeal should be heard by the same bench.
In the appeal, Thackeray argued that the contempt petition filed by a journalist, Mohan Prasad, was not maintainable as it had not been sanctioned by the Advocate General.
This is a condition in the Contempt of Court Act.
It was further argued that the High Court had not framed specific charges against the accused. In a quasi-judicial proceeding like this, this was mandatory, according to the petition.
It may be recalled that the division bench of the High Court, consisting of Justice Ashok Desai and Justice S B Mhase last Friday sentenced three of the accused for the statement made at the Dussehra rally on October 21 last year. Several leading dailies which published the statement were also arrayed along with the main accused. But they were let off.
Thackeray reportedly reiterated his assertion at a press conference in Akola on November 2 and said he was ready to name the judge if he was convicted for contempt of court.
