The Madras High Court here today convicted and sentenced Madurai-based advocate Peter Ramesh to six months simple imprisonment in a contempt of court case.
A division bench, comprising Justices V Ramasubramanian and K Ravichandra Baabu before which the suo motu contempt case filed against Ramesh came up, however suspended the sentence for 15 days, enabling him to go for on appeal.
The bench also barred Ramesh from appearing in any court in India for six months and directed him to pay a fine of Rs 2,000. It also granted him a week's time to pay the fine.
The bench, however, made it clear there was no suspension of fine and with regard to practice before any court of law.
On February 16, the Madras HC had held Ramesh guilty of the charges of contempt framed against him, observing that the behaviour of "the contemnor has grown from bad to worse..."
Hearing the contempt petition against him, the same division bench had said it was holding him guilty of the criminal charges of contempt framed against him on February 4.
It had then directed him to appear before it today to decide on the quantum of punishment.
Ramesh had in a memo denied all charges, describing them as "motivated, prejudiced and concocted".
The bench had said the contemnor had not categorically denied his behaviour in open court and the challenge he threw against the judges who initiated the procedure.
The bench had said it had observed as in their earlier orders that the attitude of Ramesh was one of aggravating the contempt. He had kept shouting in open court and raised irrelevant issues and accused the court. "In fact, his behaviour has grown from bad to worse, whenever the contempt was listed," it had said.
The Madurai bench of the HC had already initiated suo motu criminal contempt of court proceedings against Peter, former president of the Madurai unit of High Court Advocates Association, for allegedly disrupting court proceedings on September 16 last and challenging the court to act against him.
