Delhi HC sentences YouTuber guilty of criminal contempt to six months jail

The Delhi High Court has sentenced a YouTuber to six months imprisonment in contempt cases over his videos that “personally attacked” certain judicial officers and “lowered” the dignity of the judicial system.

A bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja said Gulshan Pahuja neither showed any regret nor suggested any “course correction”, and not punishing him might embolden him.

“In fact, he maintains that what he did was with the intent of improving the judicial system. He, in fact, compounds his contempt by making further scandalous submissions before this court and thus, evidently, he is neither repentant nor deserves any mercy,” the bench observed.

In his YouTube channel “Fight 4 Judicial Reforms”, Mr. Pahuja personally attacked three Delhi judicial officers and even imputed that in case a litigant’s case is listed before them, such litigant should not expect justice.

The intent of Mr. Pahuja is of “only scandalising and lowering the image of these judicial officers in the general public, thereby lowering the authority of the Court” the court had earlier said.

“We are of the opinion that these cases call for the imposition of the maximum punishment on the contemnor. We, therefore, impose the punishment of simple imprisonment for a term of six months along with a fine of ₹2000/- on the contemnor, that is, Mr. Gulshan Pahuja, in each of these matters. The sentence shall run concurrently for these matters,” the court ordered on May 16.

Mr. Pahuja submits that he will not ask for a reduction of sentence or “expect justice from this Court”. During the hearing, he started citing examples of freedom fighters and others who, on the quantum of sentence, had taken a stand that they would not accept any leniency from the British government.

Since the contemnor intended to challenge the decision, the court suspended the sentence for 60 days to enable him to approach the Supreme Court.

The court asked Mr. Pahuja to surrender before the Registrar General after 60 days if a suspension order is not passed by the Supreme Court.