The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the proceedings arising out of FIRs registered by the Tripura police against the HW News Network and its journalists — Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarnja Jha — allegedly over their reports on communal violence in the state.
A bench presided over by Justice D Y Chandrachud also issued notice to Tripura police on the plea filed by Theos Connect, which operated the digital news portal HW News Network and the scribes.
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, representing the petitioners, contended before the bench that journalists reported on the issue, there was an FIR and they were granted bail. However, there was another FIR. “This is really untenable and not justified," he said. The counsel said the FIRs were an attempt to harass the press.
After a brief hearing, the bench said, "We will issue a notice. There shall be a stay of the proceedings pursuant to the two FIRs."
The court sought a response from the state government within four weeks.
Sakunia and Jha 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 (IPC).
The Tripura Police had registered the FIRs alleging that the reports of the journalists promoted enmity between groups and spread communal hatred by baseless news about communal violence.
The petitioners, however, have contended before the court that the the offence of hate speech alleged against them was bizarre as their endeavour was to find facts and do ground reporting of the communal riots which took place in Tripura.
They claimed the FIRs were inspired by politics as the reports of the petitioners had no element of purported spreading of hatred and enmity between communities.
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(Published 08 December 2021, 08:15 IST)
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