‘He did not offer any apology at all’: Madras HC sentences Savukku Shankar to 6 months in jail in contempt case

Blogger and commentator Savukku Shankar has been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in contempt proceedings initiated by the Madras High Court.

Contempt proceedings were initiated in July after Shankar said in a YouTube video that “the entire higher judiciary is riddled with corruption”. The Madurai bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and B Pugalendhi noted today that Shankar has not “expressed his regret or remorse” and did not “offer any apology at all”, LiveLaw reported.

The bench also said Shankar had “admitted having made all the charged statements” and that it “does not require a forensic mind to conclude that they are ex-facie scandalous”. “They denigrate and deride the institution of judiciary.”

Last week, the court had granted Shankar one week to respond to the suo motu contempt proceedings initiated against him.

This is not the Madras High Court’s first contempt case against Shankar for criticising the judiciary. In July, the Madurai bench had initiated another contempt case against Shankar for a tweet criticising Justice GR Swaminathan.

The tweet was in the context of the judge quashing criminal proceedings against YouTuber Maridhas last year; Shankar had suggested that the judge had “met” someone who influenced him in favour of Maridhas. The high court said Shankar had “crossed the lakshman rekha” and called the tweet “defamatory vilification”.

Maridhas is not the only controversial YouTuber in Tamil Nadu. A right-wing YouTuber named Karthik Gopinath was in the news earlier this year for “misappropriating” nearly Rs 40 lakh that he had crowdfunded to “renovate temple statues”. He was arrested but had one very important supporter – state BJP chief K Annamalai.

Read our report on why Annamalai threw his weight behind a right-wing YouTuber in the state.