The Supreme Court is set to hear a petition filed by Adv. Prashant Bhushan seeking the establishment of an "intra-court appeal" mechanism to larger benches of the court in cases of contempt.
Petition of Adv. Nilesh Ojha, Adv. Vijay Kurle & Rashid Khan Pathan are also tagged together. Bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna Justice & Justice M.M. Sundresh will hear the case. [Matter listed at Sr. No. 44.] Rashid Khan Pathan had prayed for reference of matter to Constitution Bench as question of interpretation of constitutional mandate is alleged. Adv. Nilesh Ojha submitted written submissions for forwarding the reference to Constitutional Bench. He pointed out that there are conflicting decisions of the Supreme Court which is creating confusion. Ojha cited the cases of conviction, sentence and detention of Subrato Roy Sahara, Zahira Shaikh, Perry Kansangra etc. which is beyond the limit of section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 and clear violation of Article 20(1) of the constitution and Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) . His submission also point out that despite the fact that the constitutional validity of th