Are we really free to opinionate in this country?

Our honorable Supreme Court has finally given the verdict on Prashant Bhushan's contempt case. Prashant Bhushan has been punished with a fine of ₹1 for which the due date is 15 September. Failing to comply with the timely payment of this fine will lead him to an imprisonment of three months and/or 3 years of ban on practice of law. By now, one might be wondering what grave crime was committed by Mr. Bhushan which has led to the erection of such a controversial case. The controversy started on a social media application which is probably considered the birth place of controversies and arguments, namely Twitter. Mr. Bhushan uploaded two tweets, one on June 27 which goes as, "When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal emergency they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction and more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs." and another on June 29 where he wrote, "CJI rides a 50 Lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP leader at Raj Bhavan Nagpur, without a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC in lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice." The second tweet was made in reference to the current Chief Justice of India Mr. SA Bobde.  

Ever since that day, our Supreme court has been on the hunt of a serious evidence to charge Mr. Bhushan with a big sanction because apparently, the two tweets had disrespected the Supreme court by questioning the integrity of its decision making power. Well, how can someone forget that raising questions or putting forth one's own opinion about a certain topic opposed to government is lowkey considered a crime in this country. Our Supreme Court has only expressed that low profile feeling publicly. Hence, the two tweets were considered solid grounds to drag Mr. Bhushan to the court to prosecute him under the contempt of court case. After several efforts by the court, Mr Bhushan was held guilty on Aug 14 for the contempt of court.

Prashant Bhushan is a renowned Public Interest lawyer who has undertaken several well known pro bono cases like Kashmir issue controversy. He is a legal activist and has been a co founder of AAP in 2012. He raises his voice over concerns which are mainly opposed to the decisions taken by current central Govt., i.e. BJP. There are several other cases where it can be clearly seen why the central govt. will benefit from shutting his voice, one such instance was when Mr. Bhushan called our current Prime Minister Narendra Modi a puppet of Reliance Industries and accused RSS of terror linked activities then linked RSS with BJP. The Supreme Court which was led by Justice Arun Mishra earlier was trying to throw a punishment as harsh as possible on him but since several prominent personalities came in support of Mr. Bhushan, like the Attorney General KK Venugopal, the Court agreed to let him free but only if Bhushan willingly agreed to give a sincere apology to the court for the contempt of court.  

Mr Bhushan was certainly not in a temper to apologise because he thought that apologising would mean accepting the guilt. The court gave two more chances to him to apologise while presenting serious repercussions on not adhering to the order. Mr Bhushan stood still on his decision on not apologizing. He didn't even ask for mercy or leniency from the court. He also gave several other statements during this period like "Democracy is in danger" and "court is trying to stifle free speech of people". On the day of the final judgement, due to lack of solid evidence and continuing the case on distorted facts, the court had to settle by putting a fine of ₹1 on Prashant Bhushan and hence, the case was closed. Cases like this compel a person to think if our country is being overhauled into one where officials who claim to be doing right for us are the same officials who think it is entirely lawful to stifle the voices of people.