Tharoor, journos move SC against FIRs

New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor and senior scribes Rajdeep Sardesai, Presh Nath and his son Anant Nath, Mrinal Pande and Zafar Agha filed separate individual petitions in the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking quashing of the FIRs lodged in various states for alleged mis-statements and misreporting of tractor rally by farmers on Republic Day.


The FIRs were registered by Delhi police as well as police in Noida (UP) and Madhya Pradesh and invoked sedition charges against the politician and scribes following the mis-reporting on tractor rally, a portion of which turned violent and went on to hoist religious flag on Red Fort, and the death of one Navreet Singh after the tractor he was driving at high speed to smash through police barricade overturned and fatally injured him.


Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi would represent Tharoor and Caravan editor-in-chief Paresh Nath. Senior advocates Rajiv Nayar and Rebecca John would appear for Sardesai and Caravan editor Anant Nath, while coal scam special public prosecutor and senior advocate R S Cheema would seek relief on behalf of National Herald editorial advisor Mrinal Pande and group editor Zafar Agha.

The six petitioners had a common solicitor firm in Karanjawala & Co, which filed the separate petitions in the SC seeking quashing of the FIRs terming invocation of sedition charges as a retrograde step by the police to stifle their right to free speech and harass the noted journalists from raising voices critical of the police action.

The petitioners appeared to take a leaf out of an earlier petition filed by TV anchor Arnab Goswami, who had sought quashing of FIRs invoking sedition charges against him by Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh for a statement he had made during a TV programme.

Appearing for Goswami, Rohatgi had told a bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud in April last year that by no stretch of imagination sedition charges could be made.

Sibal, appearing for Maharashtra government, had referred to excerpts of the programme and said, "this amounts not only to an abuse of the freedom of speech and expression, but implicates the offences which are complained of." He argued that "having regard to the settled principle of law, this Court ought not to restrain a proper investigation being conducted."

The bench led by Justice Chandrachud had confined the investigations against Goswami to the FIR registered in Nagpur and shifted it to Mumbai for investigation purposes. The bench had laid down a balancing of six principles and said these were required to ensure fair administration of criminal justice. The six principles were:

* Need to ensure that criminal process does not assume character of a vexatious exercise by institution of multifarious complaints founded on the same cause in multiple States;

* Need for the law to protect journalistic freedom within the ambit of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution;

* Requirement that recourse be taken to the remedies available to every citizen in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973;

* Ensuring that in order to enable the citizen to pursue legal remedies, a protection of personal liberty against coercive steps be granted for a limited duration in the meantime;

* Investigation of an FIR should be allowed to take place in accordance with law without this Court deploying its jurisdiction under Article 32 to obstruct the due process of law; and

* Assuaging the apprehension of the petitioner of a threat to his safety and the safety of his business establishment.


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