Justice R M Savant of the Bombay High Court at Goa directed that the criminal contempt petition filed by social activist Advocate Aires Rodrigues against Goa Advocate General Subodh Kantak be placed for a hearing before a Division Bench.

The petition will now be heard next week by a Division Bench comprising of Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice N A Britto.

When the matter came up for hearing today, Mr Rodrigues pointed out to the Court that Section 18 of the Contempt of Courts Act mandates that all criminal contempt petitions should be heard by a Bench of not less than two judges. He said the office of the court had wrongly placed the petition before a Single Judge.

The petition averred that the Mr Kantak attracted the contempt for making ‘false, malicious and utterly dishonest statements’ against the high court chief Justice Britto in a Special Leave Petition filed by Mr Kantak, which he withdrew later from the Supreme Court.

Mr Rodrigues filed the contempt petition with the AG failing to apologise within 48 hours of the former serving a legal notice asking him to retract the allegations and apologise to Justice Britto.

‘Such false allegations made against a High Court judge by Mr Kantak are unbecoming of a person who holds the very high post of Advocate General of a State,’ Mr Rodrigues had said in the petition.

He had also prayed the high court that the consent of the Advocate General in the contempt petition as required by law be waived as the contempt had been committed by the Advocate General himself and seeking Mr Kantak consent to file the contempt petition would be an exercise in futility.

As per Sec 15 of Contempt of Courts Act, a Criminal contempt can be initiated by any person only with the written consent of the Advocate General of the State.

UNI