The Supreme Court has registered suo moto criminal contempt case against senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai on a plea filed by one Aastha Khurana alleging his tweets, published last year, had scandalised the judiciary.

In September last year, the Attorney General K K Venugopal had declined to give consent to initiate criminal contempt against Sardesai. According to Khurana's lawyer Omprakash, after the AG's refusal, the petitioner filed a fresh petition in the top court, which was registered as criminal contempt case on February 13, this year.