Time To Derecognize 'Scandalising The Court' As A Form Of Contempt

"Committals for contempt by scandalising the court itself have become obsolete in this country. These observations by Lord Morris were noticed by the Indian Supreme Court in the year 1953 while it delivered a judgment in an appeal against the Allahabad High Court order which held six lawyers guilty of contempt of court for "scandalising the court". Referring to the history of 'contempt law', the court observed that an act or publication which "amounts to scandalising the court itself" is one kind of contempt. The Parliament, which codified the contempt law about two decades later, defined Criminal Contempt to include ' Contempt By 'Scandalizing The Court' : A Battle Of Perceptions On An Uneven Field UK Law Commission Report of 2012 Although the report does not refer to the above observations made by Lord Morris, the UK Law Commission found that, in England and Wales, the offence had almost fallen into disuse by the end of the nineteenth century. The Indian Supreme Court in 1953 recognized this form of contempt when it observed thus: "This scandalising might manifest itself in various ways but, in substance, it is an attack on individual judges or the court as a whole with or without reference to particular cases, casting unwarranted and defamatory aspersions upon the character or ability of the judges.