‘Neither repentant nor deserves mercy’: Delhi HC sentences YouTuber to six months’ jail for contempt
The Delhi HC, however, granted a 60-day suspension of sentence for him to appeal in the Supreme Court.
Gulshan Pahuja, while terming his conduct to be bonafide, had told the court that “he should not be made to stop criticising judges by invoking the contempt jurisdiction against him.” (Photo generated using AI) The Delhi High Court last week sentenced a YouTuber to six months’ imprisonment under the Contempt of Courts Act — the maximum punishment prescribed under the law — for not showing any remorse or course correction despite the court holding him guilty of contempt earlier in April.
A division bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja sentenced YouTuber Gulshan Pahuja, who runs a YouTube channel titled ‘Fight 4 Judicial Reforms’, to the maximum punishment under the Act.
The case dates back to 2025, when the HC had taken cognisance of a reference made by a civil judge at Shahdara court, Charu Asiwal, regarding contentious videos and banners on Pahuja’s YouTube channel. In his interviews with lawyers, the lawyers had allegedly made “some objectionable and derogatory remarks against judicial officers and the judicial institution as a whole”.
The HC had also initiated contempt proceedings against the lawyers but subsequently dropped it after they tendered unconditional apologies.
The bench, in its May 16 order, reasoned, “The contemnor, by his acts, has scandalised… and lowered the authority of the Court. The contemnor shows no regret for the same. He also does not suggest any course correction. In fact, he maintains that what he did was with the intent of improving the judicial system… By not imposing adequate punishment on him, we may encourage him to repeat these acts in future and to embolden him in doing the same.”
The bench also observed that he has “compounded his contempt by making further scandalous submissions before this Court and, thus, evidently he is neither repentant nor deserves any mercy.”
Imposing a fine of Rs 2,000 under the Act, the court added that failure to pay the fine shall entail an additional month of imprisonment.
The court, however, suspended the sentence for 60 days after Pahuja said he plans to challenge the Delhi HC’s April verdict that held him guilty of contempt as well as the May 16 order which sentenced him for the offence before the Supreme Court.
“In case an order suspending the sentence of the contemnor is not passed by the Supreme Court, the contemnor shall on his own surrender before the Registrar General of this Court forthwith on expiry of the above-mentioned period,” the bench ruled.
While proceeding against Pahuja, the Delhi HC, in its April 21 order, had emphasised that “we are not proceeding against the respondent for the explicits used by him, but his intent to scandalise and lower the authority of not only the Supreme Court but the entire judiciary.”
Pahuja, while terming his conduct to be bonafide, had told the court that “he should not be made to stop criticising judges by invoking the contempt jurisdiction against him.”
He had cited cases he had filed. One was to evict his tenant in 1988, which remains pending. He claimed “his experience of court proceedings has been bad”, with the judge concerned not even reading his file in the last six months and seeing no progress in the case.
In another case, he had filed a complaint regarding money owed to him by his friend, which led to him visiting the police station with his complaint multiple times, but resulting in no action.
While holding Pahuja guilty of contempt in its April order, the Delhi HC had reasoned, “If one has to attack a judicial officer on his integrity or competence, it must be done with cogent evidence; it cannot be made lightly. We must remember that such an attack, if made without any basis, undermines the authority of the judicial officer and interferes with dispensation of justice by him/her without fear or favour…”
“… Any such criticism must be well founded, specially because the judicial officer, unlike the complainant, has no means to justify his actions in public. When a judicial officer dispenses justice, he/she is bound to make mistakes; no judicial officer is or can be expected to be 100% correct all the time; it is for this reason that we have a hierarchy of courts, where a litigant can approach the higher court if he/she is dissatisfied by the verdict… (Pahuja) pronounced his verdict against the judicial officers concerned without any basis and thereby undermined their authority,” it said.
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