Alka Verma –
Published On: November 17, 2021 at 22:00 IST
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of India restricted the Tripura Police from taking any coercive steps against two Lawyers and one Journalist, who were booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
A Bench comprising the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Surya Kant made the order while dealing with a Writ Petition filed by two lawyers Mr Mukesh and Mr Ansarul Haq Ansar and journalist Shyam Meera Singh.
The Petition filed by the Lawyers and Journalist trio requested the Top Court to quash the UAPA FIR.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan who was appearing for the Petitioners informed the Court that the two lawyers visited the State to study the violence and subsequently, published a fact-finding report about it.
Due to their social media posts and eye-opening reports about the communal violence; that recently took place in Tripura, the trio were booked by Tripura police.
Following this, the Tripura Police issued a notice against them and asked them to appear for interrogation in relation to the FIR under the UAPA on November 10.
In the notice, the Police stated, “Against the social media posts circulated by you/ statements made by you for promoting enmity between religious groups as well as provoking the people of different religious communities to cause breach of peace”.
However, Advocate Bhushan clarified that the 2 lawyers and the journalist had not been relieved yet when CJI asked about some news reports that two journalists were granted Bail with regard to the Tripura matter.
After listening to all this, the Top Court directed the Tripura Police to not take any coercive steps against the three of them.
It should be noted here that in the filed Petition, the Petitioners also challenged Constitutional Validity Section 2(1)(o)which defines unlawful activity, Section 13 which talks about punishment for unlawful activity and 43D(5) which deals with restrictions on grant of Bail of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). They contended that if the order was allowed then only news in favour of the government would be reported.
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