Delhi Government Additional Standing Counsel (ASC) Amol Sinha has granted consent to initiate criminal contempt of court proceedings against Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) legal head Ratna Singh over her social media posts criticising a Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) at Saket Courts.

Advocate Kausik Chatterjee had sought consent to initiate contempt proceedings against Singh through representations dated October 14 and October 28.

In his response dated November 2, Sinha stated that Singh's posts prima facie attract Section 2(c)(i) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, which deals with criminal contempt involving scandalising or lowering the authority of a court.

The controversy arose from proceedings before Chief Judicial Magistrate Abhinav Pandey of the South-East District.

Singh had approached the Magistrate seeking registration of an FIR against police personnel who allegedly detained her on October 10 while she was attempting to join CJP protests against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. She had also sought release from the alleged detention. However, the Court declined to grant her relief.

Following the order, Singh took to X and criticised the Magistrate.

"Judge serving the master. Went for break/meeting 4 times during entire hearing. Order without any application of law," one of her posts read.

In another post, she alleged, "@DelhiPolice is following order from master. Judge is following order from master."

In his response granting consent, ASC Sinha stated that the posts attributed extraneous influence to the judicial officer and suggested that the judge had acted on the instructions of an unidentified external authority.

He observed that such allegations were made without any factual foundation and were capable of undermining public confidence in the administration of justice.