Bathroom to courtroom: Man attends virtual hearing from toilet, Gujarat HC orders contempt proceedings

The Gujarat High Court has initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against a man for attending a virtual hearing while sitting on a toilet seat.

The incident occurred on June 20 when Justice Nirzar S. Desai was hearing a case. A video of it soon went viral on social media platforms.

A division bench of Justices A.S. Supehia and R.T. Vachhani passed an order on June 30 directing the HC registry to "register a suo motu contempt proceedings against the person who is seen in the video".

In its 'oral order' which was uploaded on July 3, the HC bench directed the Registrar of Information and Technology to inform the Court "about the mechanism to stop contumacious litigants in participating in the live streaming proceedings, since it is also noticed by us that such disorderly and uncontrolled behaviour has become frequent".

"Registry shall issue the notice to the contemnor as to why he should not be prosecuted and punished for committing Contempt of Court as defined under Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. A suo motu proceeding shall be listed after a period of two weeks," the bench said in the order.

"The infamous video tarnishing the image of this court is widely circulated in social media and it requires to be immediately banned and deleted," the bench further said.

Answering nature’s call during proceedings

In the video, a man wearing a yellow t-shirt can be seen logging in using a mobile phone, with the name on the screen identifying him as ‘Samad Battery’.

Shockingly, the video shows he had been sitting on a toilet seat and answering nature's call while he attended the proceedings through video link.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Gujarat High Court has allowed both lawyers and litigants to join through the virtual mode, and the proceedings of each hearing are broadcast live via the court's YouTube channel.

The one minute-long video showed that the man, later identified as Abdul Samad, had kept the mobile phone on the floor of the toilet with the camera facing him.

After finishing his business in the toilet, he picked up the phone and left. Justice Desai apparently did not notice his actions or the surroundings.

The same person, wearing wireless earphones, can be seen logging in again later in the livestream, sitting in a room and waiting for his turn.

After nearly 10 minutes, Justice Desai asked his name and he identified himself as Abdul Samad, a resident of Kim village of Surat and the complainant in a case of assault.

His lawyers informed the court that Mr. Samad had recently lodged a complaint of assault against two persons in Kim, but both the parties have arrived at a compromise.

Hearing the petition filed by the two accused seeking to quash the First Information Report, Justice Desai asked Samad if he consented to it.

He told the court he had no objection, following which Justice Desai granted the accused's plea.