Delhi HC closes criminal contempt of court case against author Anand Ranganathan

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday closed proceedings in a 2018 suo motu criminal contempt case initiated against author Dr. Anand Ranganathan and others for their alleged defamatory tweets. The case is related to an alleged tweet by Ranganathan against former Justice Muralidhar in respect of the judge's order quashing the order of house arrest and transit remand of activist Gautam Navlakha in the Bhima Koregaon case.

As a result, contempt of court proceedings were initiated against him. A division bench headed by Justices Suresh Kumar Kait took note that others in the case including RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, and the publication Drishtikone have already discharged in the matter after tendering unconditional apologies.

Gurumurthy also the editor of the Tamil political weekly Thuglak was discharged in 2019 and Agnihotri was discharged in 2023, the court observed while closing the case. "... In our considered opinion, this further is a sheer waste of time to take any action against the rest of the contemnors. Therefore, we hereby close the proceedings," the bench also comprising Justice Manoj Jain said.

It was also noted by the bench that Ranganathan and others were not initiators of the allegations and merely supported the right to speech of those who had been involved in the matter. "It is not in dispute that S. Gurumurthy supported the articles published by Respondent No. 3, and thereafter the other respondents 13 (Ranganathan) and 14 (Editor of Swarajya Magazine) also supported the right to speech of the said contemnor," the court said.

In a previous hearing, Ranganathan, who appeared in person, had said: "I am a free speech absolutist. I am honoured to be here. I didn't comment on what the judge said." Earlier, the bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh had remarked the court was “all for free speech” but statements made should not be "slanderous.".