Attorney General K K Venugopal on Monday granted consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Ajeet Bharti, editor of the newsportal dopolitics.in, over a video critical of the Supreme Court and judges.

“I find that the contents of the video which has been watched by about 1.7 lakh viewers are vituperative, gross and highly derogatory to the Supreme Court of India and the judiciary as a whole being clearly intended to denigrate the courts.

The allegations made by Mr Ajeet Bharti against the Supreme Court are, among other things, of bribery, favouritism and abuse of power,” the A-G said in his letter granting consent.

The A-G referred to some of Bharti’s remarks, including one where he said “the Supreme Court was shown its real place by Prashant Bhushan, all at the expense of Rs 1”

where he spoke about judges withdrawing from hearing “Mamata Banerjee’s case” and said “whatever might have been the motive behind the making of these scurrilous statements

it was obvious that the speaker who is quite educated would have known that the result would be to attract the contempt jurisdiction of the Supreme Court…”