New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday told the Indian Medical Association (IMA) President, that his apology should have been published in all the newspapers, which carried his interview, in which he made remarks against the apex court in connection with the Patanjali matter. The apex court stressed that the apology must be published on his funds and not from IMA's coffers.
A bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta asked IMA chief Dr R V Asokan as to why he had tendered his apology only to an e-newspaper and a news agency, rather than publishing in all the newspapers which carried his interview.
"All those newspapers in which that interview is carried, you need to approach them to tender an apology through your own pocket. Not IMA", said the bench told the IMA chief’s counsel.
Senior advocate P S Patwalia, representing IMA, said he would take appropriate steps to purge himself of the contempt of court. The bench said he is "inviting more trouble" for himself and added, “You could not wash his hands off by sending an apology" to the news agency.
The bench made it clear that it is not happy with the nature of the apology tendered by the IMA chief in connection with his contemptuous remarks against the court in an interview.
"The apology has to be published in all the newspapers which carried his interview. The same (apology) has to be done using his own funds and not the funds of the IMA," said the bench. The apex court has scheduled the matter for further hearing on August 27.
The apex court, in May this year, had chided the IMA chief for attacking the institution with his remarks in an ongoing contempt proceeding against Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev and Patanjali's MD Acharya Balkrishna in a misleading advertisements case. IMA had moved the court against the smear campaign by Patanjali and Swami Ramdev against the Covid vaccination and modern systems of medicine.
