Supreme Court
NEW DELHI: A “petitioner-in-person”, Prabal Pratap, on Friday caught a Supreme Court bench and advocates by surprise when he “ordered” the judges to register a case against a police officer in Lucknow, threw a bunch of papers in the courtroom and then went on to swear at the CJI.Appearing along with co-petitioner Chandra Bhan before a bench of Justices K V Viswanathan and Alok Aradeh, Pratap said: “Mr Judicial Servant, I order you to order registration of FIR against ACP, Vikas Nagar, Lucknow.””You are ordering us?” asked a surprised Justice Viswanathan. Unfazed, Pratap who, like Chandra Bhan, was attired like an advocate, continued brandishing 185 pages of documents against Duplex Technologies, which, he alleged, is running a syndicate. Despite criminal contempt, SC refrains from taking actionHe tossed the bundle into the air. As the papers scattered, he then used a cuss word, prompting security personnel to physically remove him from the courtroom.However, despite the criminal contempt, the bench did not initiate any action. The bench said, “As far as the merit of this case is concerned, we have perused the records, we find no good ground to interfere with the impugned judgement/order(s). The special leave petition is, accordingly, dismissed,” it said. Pratap had challenged Allahabad high court’s April 6 order refusing to entertain his writ petition seeking quashing of the February 21 order of special chief judicial magistrate (custom), Lucknow, which had converted his application under Sec 173(3) of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita into a private complaint case along with subsequent proceedings arising from the case Prabal Pratap Vs Duplex Technologies Services.He had also sought a direction to the Lucknow police commissioner to take over the investigations into his allegations against Duplex Technologies Services. The high court had dismissed his writ petition saying the chief judicial magistrate’s order could be challenged in accordance with law.
