Free citizens can't exist without free press: SC on Arnab Goswami's case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that free citizens cannot exist if the news media cannot speak. The rights of journalists to exercise freedom of speech and expression is on a higher footing but it is not absolute.

Extending protection to Republic TV's Editor Arnab Goswami for three weeks, a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah quashed all the FIRs except one transferred to Mumbai from Nagpur.

The court said multiple FIRs lodged on identical facts will have a stifling effect on freedom of expression.

It, however, rejected Goswami's plea for a CBI probe into the matter. The court asked him to approach a competent court for quashing of one particular case, registered on telecast of a programme on killings of Hindu priests in Palghar, and subsequently another FIR lodged with regard to another programme on migrants' issue.

The court said the power of transfer of investigation to CBI has to be exercised sparingly.

The investigation in complaint against Goswami would continue at Mumbai as there cannot be quashing of FIR under Article 32 of the Constitution and he can pursue his remedy before a competent court, it said.

The court had on April 24 granted Goswami interim protection of three weeks in over 100 FIRs registered across the country. However, it had asked him to cooperate in one FIR initially registered in Nagpur and subsequently transferred to Mumbai.

The cases were triggered after Goswami, on April 21, questioned Congress president Sonia Gandhi's silence in the lynching of two Hindu seers and their driver in Palghar on April 16.

However, on May 2, a fresh case was lodged against him with Pydhonie Police Station, Mumbai, based on a complaint filed by one Irfan Abubakar Shaikh with regard to a programme on "fake migrant crisis in Maharashtra in relation to gathering in Bandra".