Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court issued a contempt notice to a woman lawyer for making ‘scandalous’ remarks and an ‘unjustified’ challenge to the court’s authority while seeking the preponement of the hearing of her pending petition. The lawyer threatened to implead the judges entrusted to adjudicate her case as a party before the Supreme Court (SC) if her case was not advanced for hearing.“The act of the petitioner is an attempt at intimidating the adjudicatory authority, which prima facie amounts to interference in the judicial process. The unwarranted and unjustified challenge to the authority of the courts undermines the dignity of the rule of law. Furthermore, such scandalous remarks have the potential of shaking the very edifice of the judicial system, which would inevitably shake the faith of the public in the institution,” Justice Harpreet Singh Brar of the HC observed while issuing notice to the woman lawyer.She was asked to respond by Aug 29 as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against her.The bench was also of the view that since the petitioner is not a layperson but a qualified advocate, it cannot be assumed that the said unceremonious behaviour stemmed from a lack of knowledge.Justice Brar passed these orders after hearing an application filed by advocate Ravneet Kaur.The lawyer in this case filed an application before the HC for preponing the hearing of her case from Oct 31 to an earlier date with the ‘intimidation’ that if the case was not preponed, she would implead the judges who heard her case as a party to file an appeal before the SC. In her application, the lawyer claimed that justice was denied deliberately and intentionally by curtailing her fundamental and legal rights and delaying the main petition just to put her under pressure to withdraw the present complaints against Punjab IPS officer, Gurpreet Singh Bhullar. She also alleged that her case was not being taken up with the intention to harass her.After hearing her plea, Justice Brar observed that a perusal of the record indicates no reasons that could justify making such scandalous allegations by the petitioner. “In fact, not only has she failed to indicate how she was intentionally victimised in the matter at hand, but she also made scandalous remarks attacking the integrity of the justice dispensation mechanism. Thus, this court is constrained to note that the pleadings of the petitioner are per se contemptuous,” observed the court while issuing notice to the lawyer.“The reckless allegations made by the petitioner were intended to bring disrepute to the justice administration system,” Justice Harpreet Singh Brar.
