A hint of a smile, while holding up a Re 1 coin, on activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan’s face said it all. The 63-year-old, who had been held guilty of contempt by the Supreme Court, had earlier refused to apologise and chose to face the punishment, which turned put to be a symbolic fine of Re 1 and the failure to pay it would lead to 3-month jail term and debarment from law practice for 3 years.

Tweeting two photos soon after the top court verdict, Bhushan wrote, “My lawyer and senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted.” He later said at a press conference that he would pay the fine adding that he reserved the right to challenge the conviction. 

Bhushan, a lawyer of more than three decades’ experience and 1.7 million followers on Twitter, seems to be living up to his Twitter bio that says, “Do and say what is just fair and in public interest, regardless of immediate fallout.”

Bhushan consistently taken up many issues of public interest, including environment, human rights and those involving key institutions such as the judiciary and its accountability. Since 1991, he has been involved in a campaign for judicial accountability to generate public opinion for putting in place credible legal institutions.

He was a founder member of the Aam Aadmi Party and was removed in 2015 for what the ruling party of Delhi said was “gross indiscipline and anti-party activities”. Bhushan later co-founded Swaraj Abhiyan, a socio-political organisation.

The activist-lawyer is associated with various organisations including the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), and Transparency International (India). CPIL, represented by Bhushan, won a major victory in 2003 when the Supreme Court restrained the Union government from privatising Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum without the approval of Parliament.

Bhushan has been associated with a plethora of cases involving the functioning of the government an the judiciary– be it the allocation of coal blocks, the Narmada rehabilitation plan, judicial appointments and the MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS).

His latest showdown with the judiciary was over his comments against the Chief Justice. The case is related to two tweets posted by Bhushan on June 27 and 29. While the first one talked about an undeclared emergency and the role of the Supreme Court. The second was regarding Chief Justice SA Bobde who tried a Harley Davidson superbike in his hometown Nagpur, during the coronavirus outbreak.

The Supreme Court on Monday sentenced Bhushan, to a fine of Rupee 1 in the contempt case for his tweets on the judiciary. The court, while delivering its verdict said, “Failure to deposit fine will lead to 3-month jail term and debarment from law practice for 3 years.” The court also observed that freedom of speech can’t be curtailed but the rights of others need to be respected.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari delivered the ruling. In its last hearing, the Court had said that it was “painful” to read the justifications of Bhushan in connection with the case. “This is not the way a senior lawyer like Bhushan over 30 years of experience should behave,” Justice Arun Mishra observed. While the court had said that apology is a magical word that can heal a lot many things, Bhushan had said that apology would mean “contempt of his conscience.”