The Supreme Court has declined to stop criminal contempt proceedings against advocate Nilesh C. Ojha over allegations he made against Bombay High Court judge Justice Revati Mohite Dere, holding that personal imputations against judges, if left unchecked, can damage public confidence in the justice system and weaken judicial independence. The ruling came from a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta on April 20, as it dealt with appeals arising from Bombay High Court orders passed on September 17 and October 16, 2025. At the heart of the dispute were remarks made during a press conference connected to litigation over the death of Disha Salian. Ojha had questioned Justice Dere’s neutrality and attributed political motives to her, including an allegation that she should not hear the matter because of an asserted link between her sister and the Nationalist Congress Party. The Supreme Court treated that line of attack as crossing the line between legal criticism and personal vilification of a serving judge.
The court drew a sharp distinction between challenging a judicial order and alleging bias or improper motive against the judge who delivered it. It said a litigant is fully entitled to question the correctness of a decision before a higher forum, but that such a challenge must be framed through sober legal argument rather than insinuations about integrity or allegiance. The bench underlined that criticism of the judiciary is permissible in a constitutional democracy, yet accusations of a personal nature must be backed by unimpeachable material and pursued strictly through lawful procedure.
That reasoning goes to the centre of a recurring tension in public law: the balance between free expression and protection of judicial institutions. Courts in India have repeatedly held that fair criticism of judgments is legitimate, but that scandalising judges through unsupported allegations can amount to criminal contempt when it tends to lower the authority of the court or obstruct the administration of justice. In this matter, the Supreme Court signalled that the threshold had been crossed not because criticism was voiced, but because motive was imputed without a lawful evidentiary basis.
The ruling is also significant because the remarks were made by a member of the Bar. The bench stressed that lawyers occupy a privileged position within the justice system and are expected to show restraint, sobriety and fidelity to professional ethics, both inside and outside court. That observation carries weight beyond the present dispute. It reflects judicial unease over a pattern in which recusal demands, press conferences and public campaigns are increasingly used to cast doubt on judges instead of testing adverse orders through appeals, reviews or other recognised legal remedies.
Bombay High Court had already taken the view that the allegations justified contempt action, and the apex court’s refusal to intervene means those proceedings may continue on their merits. For now, the Supreme Court has not pronounced on guilt in the contempt case itself; it has only refused to quash the process at the threshold. That procedural posture matters, because it leaves the High Court free to examine the full record while affirming that superior courts will not lightly derail contempt action where allegations are directed at the personal credibility of a sitting judge.
The case arrives at a time when the judiciary is facing sharper public scrutiny, amplified by digital media, political polarisation and high-profile litigation. Judges are being discussed far more openly than in earlier decades, and transparency demands have grown. Yet the same environment has made it easier for unverified claims to spread quickly and harden into partisan narratives. The Supreme Court’s message is that accountability cannot be confused with licence to level charges without proof, especially where the target is a serving judge in a pending or politically sensitive matter.