Saurav Das, co-convener of the Cockroach Janta Party, is facing legal trouble after a criminal contempt petition was submitted against him at the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The petition was filed by a leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party in response to a social media post made by Das on August 20. The post discussed a recent court judgement, which has now led to this legal action.
“If you remember, I had reported how the previous Chief Justice too had violated the roster to withdraw and list politically sensitive cases related to AAP-to-BJP defector MPs. Justice Mishra was then the acting Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court. That Chief Justice was elevated to the Supreme Court recently. Why are roster violations and misuse of master of roster powers being accepted? Several such instances in opposition ruled states. We must guard our institutions from being weaponised to meet political ends,” Das wrote on X. The petition alleges that Das’s post scandalised the judgement passed by the court. It also claims that Justice Mishra’s elevation to the Supreme Court was only done after recommendation by the Supreme Court Collegium.
The bench of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor of Punjab and Haryana high court passed a judgement on August 3 directing the Punjab government to clear pending dearness allowance (DA) of employees and pensioners within a fortnight.
“Days later, on 6 August, the ACJ gets promoted as the Chief Justice of the same High Court,” Das added. The Delhi high court on Thursday took a dim view of the posts in which he claimed that BJP leader and senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia had called Swatantra Bhardwaj a “dimagi naxal”, following which Das and the party’s co-convenor Ashutosh Ranka undertook to take down the posts within 24 hours.
