YouTuber Savukku Shankar gets 6 months' jail for corruption allegation on judiciary

Popular YouTuber Achimuthu Shankar alias Savukku Shankar has been convicted of criminal contempt for accusing the higher judiciary of corruption.

He has also been sentenced to six-month imprisonment by the Madurai bench of Madras High Court on Thursday (September 15).

Shankar who is known to expose corruption in the government and judiciary on the YouTube channel, Red Pix, and other websites, had on July 22 alleged that the “entire higher judiciary is plagued by corruption”.

Taking suo motu cognizance of the allegations, Justices GR Swaminathan and B Pugalendhi said: “We would have closed the proceedings if the contemnor had realised his mistake and sincerely apologised. (But) far from doing so, the contemnor stuck to his position. In fact, his conduct during the last few weeks would constitute acts of contempt on their own. We consciously refrain from referring to them.”

“The contemnor is a suspended employee of the state government. He is receiving a subsistence allowance for the last 13 years. He is governed by conduct rules. Yet, he has been attacking all three organs of the State in a vicious manner,” the court observed.

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“He cannot tar the entire institution with a single brush. That would be crossing the lakshman rekha by a long shot. It is not as if the said remark accidentally tumbled out of his mouth — it was not a slip of the tongue. As the contemnor himself asserted, he has been in the field for almost 13 years,” it said.

The bench noted that Shankar had admitted making all the statements in question. “It does not require a forensic mind to conclude that they are ex-facie scandalous. They denigrate and deride the institution of judiciary,” the court order noted.

“The contemnor has reiterated his resolve to continue his attack on the judiciary. He has gone to the extent of stating that he can be sentenced only to a maximum of six months and after coming out he will focus all his attention exclusively on judges and the judiciary,” it said.

Shankar, who was suspended as a lower division clerk from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption over a decade ago, has been attacking the government and politicians of corruption and has of late, started targeting the judiciary.