Ahmedabad, Jul 1 (PTI): Appalled by a senior counsel sipping from a beer mug and talking on the phone while virtually attending a hearing, the Gujarat High Court on Tuesday initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against him for the "outrageous and glaring" conduct.
A division bench of Justice A.S. Supehia and Justice R.T. Vachhani stated that Bhaskar Tanna's senior counsel title should be withdrawn owing to his conduct but decided to take further action after hearing the case.
The incident occurred before a bench of Justice Sandeep Bhatt on June 25 and a video clip was circulated on social media thereafter.
"A video clip of high court proceedings widely circulated in social media shows his contemptuous behaviour of talking on the phone and also having a drink in a beer mug while attending the hearing," Justice Supehia stated.
This "outrageous and glaring" act of Tanna has very wide ramifications, and if ignored or disregarded, it will be destructive to the rule of law, the court stated.
"We direct the registry to initiate suo motu contempt of court proceedings against senior counsel Bhaskar Tanna. The registry will submit a report before the next date of hearing," it said.
In a legal context, "suo motu" refers to a court or other authority taking action on its own initiative, without being formally requested or petitioned by another party.
The high court directed (the registry) to issue a notice to Tanna and barred him from appearing virtually before the batch.
"The demeanour of Tanna defies the privilege of senior counsel conferred upon him by the court. As per our opinion his title should be withdrawn, however, that will be decided at a later stage," Justice Supehia stated.
The contempt proceedings will be heard after two weeks.
A shocking video clip had gone viral a week ago showing a man attending proceedings of the Gujarat High Court virtually by sitting on a toilet seat.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).