India, April 3 -- In what is likely to be among the first instances of its kind, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has ordered initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against a sitting BJP MLA after a judge recorded that the legislator attempted to contact him to discuss a pending case.
The order, passed on 2nd April by a division bench led by Chief Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva, directs the registry to register a suo motu criminal contempt petition against Sanjay Satyendra Pathak, a five-time MLA from Vijayraghavgarh, and list the matter for hearing on 6th April.
The proceedings stem from a prior judicial order dated 1st September 2025, in which a single-judge bench recorded that Pathak had attempted to call the judge to "have discussio...