Supreme Court awards 3-month suspended jail to lawyer for contempt of court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday debarred a lawyer from practising in the top court for a year and handed him a suspended sentence of three months in jail, for contempt of court by launching a personal attack on judges.

A bench, comprising Justices RF Nariman and Vineet Saran, made the jail term conditional on his future conduct. He will go to jail immediately if he browbeats any judge of the top court or the Bombay High Court again.

The Bar Council of India is technically the body which can take disciplinary action against lawyers, but in this case, the bench seems to have invoked its powers to initiate contempt proceedings.


It passed the order after the lawyer, Nedumpara Mathews, apologised profusely for raking up senior advocate Fali S Nariman’s name in a case relating to designation of senior advocates.

He had raked up lawyer Nariman’s name to make a point, while arguing a public interest petition that sought automatic senior advocate designation for all after certain years of practice.

“You can debate issues, but this is personal,” Justice Nariman observed, when Mathews tried to justify his remarks saying he held the senior lawyer in high esteem and only took his name to justify his case. Fali S Nariman is the father of Justice Nariman. The senior Nariman never appears in his son’s court although he appears before other benches. Justice UU Lalit’s father also appears in the top court.

He also doesn’t appear in his son’s court.

Justice Nariman alluded to this to argue that it was a personal attack on him.

“Do you know that I have a daughter who practises? I don’t allow her to step into this court,” Justice Nariman said at one point.