SC on Thursday, left off BJP Delhi Chief Manoj Tiwari in contempt case against him for breaking into a house sealed by a court-mandated team. The court, however, severely criticized him for behaving “irresponsibly” and projecting himself as “rebel without a cause”.
A bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur expressed its anguish against Tiwari’s behaviour and condemned his action of exhibiting “misplaced bravado”. The bench gave the statement,“It is a misplaced bravado including chest thumping and a misplaced political agenda.”
However, the court did not take any action against him. The bench said it is up to BJP to take action against him.
The court said that it was pained by the machismo and the manner of Tiwari. As an elected representative he should have acted responsibly rather taking law in his own hands.
Manoj Tiwari had broken into a house sealed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation in Northeast Delhi’s Gokulpur. The property was sealed because an illegal dairy was operating from the premises. Tiwari justified breaking the seal, questioning why only one house was sealed by officials if there were 1,000 other houses. At one point, the court had also told him to come up with a list of 1,000 unauthorised properties and even offered to give him the power to seal them too.
Tiwari claimed that he didn’t mean to disrespect the court but was “forced to do symbolic affirmative protest action against the illegal sealing action done by officials.”Senior counsel Vikas Singh, appearing for the BJP leader, had said that “monitoring committee want to terrorise the people of Delhi. This is only for publicity”.
SC had earlier ordered restoration of its 2006 monitoring committee to identify and seal unauthorised structures in Delhi.