Supreme Court issues contempt notice to ex-judge Markandey Katju

NEW DELHI: In an unprecedented move, a Supreme Court bench, which had recently acquitted the Soumya case accused on the charge of murder while sentencing him to life over rape, issued contempt notice to former top court judge Markandey Katju on Friday over his disparaging comments against the bench.

Justice Katju had sharply criticised the judgement, prompting the bench to ask him to come and explain what he thought was wrong with the ruling. Katju, who used to preside over the same court with much elan just a few years ago, put in a personal appearance in court, and in his usual outspoken manner, chided the judged openly for lacking in common sense.

“Admissible evidence need not always be credible. If a witness comes into the court and says it is midnight, will you accept it? There’s something called common sense as well.

You must accept what is credible and reject what is not credible,” he said. He argued that the injuries inflicted by the accused in this was case sufficient to lead to Soumya’s death. “Does it matter whether she jumped on her own or was thrown out?

She was murderously assaulted, her skull was fractured and she was insensitive. Even if she were to jump out of the moving train under the threat of imminent death what difference does it make?” He insisted that the bench take the circumstances cumulatively and not in isolation to acts attributable to the accused.

However, the bench rejected his argument saying on a review, the court cannot just go by a different reasoning to convict the accused. There’s no law which presumes that all acts would be attributable to the accused, the bench said.