Shashi Tharoor’s tweet, terming senior Congress leader P Chidambaram’s 98-day stay in Tihar jail as ‘travesty’ only amounts to casting aspersions on the integrity of the courts and contempt of court
Bengaluru: Early this morning, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor visited former Union minister and another senior leader P Chidambaram at Tihar jail.
Minutes after the visit, Tharoor put out a tweet about his visit and strangely termed Chidambaram’s 98-day stay in jail as “travesty”. The leader even questioned about P Chidambaram’s right to liberty. Here is the tweet.
Visited, w/ and , Shri in TiharJail this AM. He looked strong &in good spirits. But what a travesty his 98 days of imprisonment are. It’s Constitution Day tomorrow;where is PC’s right to liberty? What signal does it send about our democracy?
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor)
The judiciary and the legislature are never connected to each other. Whatever decision the courts take are based on merits and facts.
When Chidambaram was ordered by the courts to go to Tihar jail, it is assumable that the courts, in their wisdom, and the merits available at their disposal, deemed it fit that the former Union minister deserved such a fate.
In simple terms, with his tweet, Tharoor is questioning the integrity of the courts and casting aspersions on the way they function.
BJP spokesperson Sreenath Sheshadri says, “The decision to send Chidambaram to Tihar jail was taken by the courts. In simple words, it is a judicial decision. If Tharoor talks like this, it only amounts to contempt of court. Even though Chidambaram was the finance minister earlier, none of the other Congress leaders have raised any issue about his jail stay because it relates to the courts. Whatever Tharoor said is unfortunate.”
Another Congress leader DK Shivakumar, known to be the trouble-shooter in Karnataka Congress had also been sent to Tihar jail earlier by a Delhi court in relation to unaccounted money found at this residence in Delhi. But unlike Chidambaram, Shivakumar must consider him lucky as the Delhi high court granted him bail.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court, when the ED approached it challenging the Delhi high court’s granting of bail to Shivakumar, did not honour the plea to withdraw the bail, on the grounds that the ED had copy-pasted paragraphs related to an earlier case to P Chidambaram.
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