Deccan Herald: The High Court on Thursday dropped contempt proceedings against members of Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) Bangalore and advocates, which it initiated for an attempt to malign Justice K L Manjunath, a judge of the High Court.A division bench comprising Justices N Kumar and Indrakala dropped the contempt petition against Jai Chaitanya Dasa, secretary, Iskcon; Madhu Pandit Dasa, president, Iskcon; senior counsel S K V Chalapathi; counsels V H Ron, Ramesh Babu and S A Maruthi Prasad, saying that there was no scandalous attack on the judiciary in the matter.
“In the entire episode, the court is not involved. No scandalous attack is made on any judge or the judiciary in discharging their judicial functions. It’s purely a private matter between the learned judge, who was a devotee of the private temple, its faction and advocates representing the faction. The Contempt of Court Act 1971 was not enacted by parliament to deal with the situation arising out of circumstances displayed before us,” the bench observed in its over 230-page order.
Pointing out to the entire episode, which led to the contempt proceedings, the bench said the learned judge could not have taken note of the private communications relating to an appeal pending before him, as such things are forbidden.
“The two letters by the judge’s erstwhile senior counsel and his erstwhile junior colleague show they wanted to implicate their brother lawyers appearing in the case without any justification, which only speaks of professional jealousy. The learned judge could not see through this and was unnecessarily caught in the web. The erstwhile colleagues of the judge have not measured up to the standards of professional conduct and etiquette expected of them and it was improper on their part to have addressed those two letters. The learned judge also could not have taken note of these private communications relating to an appeal pending before him, as such private communications are forbidden,” the bench observed.
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