Shivani Gadhavi –
Published On: December 08, 2021 at 19:10 IST
The Supreme Court of India on December 8th, 2021 put a stay on every Criminal proceeding against two journalists of the HW News and the company itself, who were booked by the Tripura Police for reporting the communal violence in Tripura.
A Supreme Court Bench of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud issued a notice and questioned the Tripura State Government to take action on the Plea filed by the two journalists of HW News who seek quashing of all the Charges against them.
The Tripura State Police arrested the two journalists in November, 2021 during the communal tensions that arose as an aftermath of the rally of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad where the two were reporting on the matter.
The Police booked the two journalists for spreading communal disharmony by covering the communal violence. The two are also booked under charges of “fabricating and concealing records” about the aforementioned violence, and the two are also accused of getting involved in a ‘criminal conspiracy’.
The two were booked under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) of the Indian Penal Code.
Advocate Siddharth Luthra who is representing the two journalists stated, “The difficulty that is faced is that you report the news, 1 FIR is registered, and then you register a second [FIR] really to say that we have now establish that in the first FIR, the journalists are wrong, …this is usually untenable and not justified.”
The Petition of the journalists stated, “The petition has been filed in relation to the targeted abuse of criminalizing the reporting by petitioners and its correspondents/ reporters and illegal detention in relation to, reporting of events regarding violence qua minorities in the State of Tripura in the second half of October.”
