Supreme Court relief for journalist, lawyers charged under UAPA by Tripura police

The apex court also issued notice to Tripura Police on the plea challenging UAPA invoked against the lawyers and the journalist

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Tripura government on a plea against the decision to invoke the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against two lawyers, and a journalist.

A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices D Y Chandrachud and Surya Kant also directed the Tripura government not to take any coercive step against the petitioners.

In a brief hearing, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners, submitted that the FIR was lodged against them after they went for a "fact-finding" job with regard to violence in the state.

The court decided to seek a response from the state but refused, for now, a request the matter with a pending plea against constitutional validity of the provisions of the UAPA. The court said the instant matter was also related to the quashing of the FIR.

The petitioners Shyam Meera Singh and others challenged the constitutional validity of certain "widely misused" provisions of UAPA and the wide definition of 'unlawful activities' under the law.

Also read: Women journalists, who were given bail were 'political agents': Tripura Minister

The petitioners claimed the petition was filed under Article 32 of the Constitution in relation to what they alleged as "targeted political violence against the Muslim minorities" in Tripura during the second half of the month of October 2021.

They also questioned the subsequent efforts by the State of Tripura to "monopolise the flow of information and facts emanating from the affected areas by invoking provisions of the UAPA against members of civil society including advocates and journalists who have made the effort to bring facts in relation to the targeted violence in the public domain".

Following the Tripura Police's action against a journalist and other activists for offences punishable under the UAPA, the plea was moved by Mukesh, Ansarul Haq Ansari, and Singh in the top court to quash the FIR lodged against them on November 3 at West Tripura police station and subsequent notices issued against them to join the investigation.

The petitioners claimed a report titled “Humanity Under Attack in Tripura #Muslim Lives Matter”, published on November 2, by Lawyers for Democracy, has brought on record evidences into the "orchestrated and targeted violence perpetrated by political right wing forces on the minority Muslim community in Tripura in October, purportedly as a counterblast to violence perpetrated on minority Hindu community in Bangladesh, which continued until October 26".

The four-member "fact-finding" team comprised advocates Ehtesham Hashmi and Amit Srivastav, Ansar Indori (National Secretary, NCHRO), and Mukesh, member, PUCL Delhi.

"If the State is allowed to criminalise the very act of fact-finding and reporting and that too under the stringent provisions of the UAPA in which anticipatory bail is barred and the idea of bail is a remote possibility then the only facts that will come in the public domain are those that are convenient to the State due to the ‘chilling effect’ on the freedom of speech and expression of members of civil society," their plea said.

Watch the latest DH Videos here: