1. Order dated September 3, 2021
The Supreme Court has stayed further proceedings in a fresh case filed in West Bengal against some people, including editors of a news web portal, in connection with articles published by them. The court also made the protection granted in an interim order of last year to Nupur J Sharma, the editor of Opindia, and others including its founder and CEO, as absolute. A bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh, while dealing with the fresh FIR said, “Further proceedings in pursuance of FIR No…registered at Bhadreswar Police Station shall remain stayed.”
2. Interim orders was absolute
It said that interim orders passed on June 26, 2020, in the main writ petition filed last year are made absolute and posted the next hearing in November 2021. On June 26 last year, the top court had stayed further proceedings in three FIRs lodged in West Bengal against petitioners.
3. New Developments
The petitioners/applicants as the petitioners/applicants have recently on August 5, been served with a notice under section 41A of the CrPC from CID, West Bengal in relation to FIR registered with Bhadreshwar police station”, it said. It said that the FIR relates to media reports published in opindia.com about Telenipara communal riots of May 2020 and were registered contemporaneously around the same time as FIRs, which forms the subject matter of the writ petition. The petitioners said that the FIR came to their notice only on the receipt of the notice under section 41CrPC on August 5 requiring them to appear before the investigating officer on August 13 but later the investigating officer through an email dated August 12 asked the petitioner to appear on August 23. They sought a stay on the investigation emanating from the FIR registered at Bhadreshwar police station and the notice issued to them for appearing before investigating officer. The petitioners also sought quashing of the FIR.
4. Background of the case
On June 26 last year, the Supreme Court had, while staying the three FIRs, issued notices to the West Bengal government and the Centre seeking their replies on the plea. The main writ petition filed by Nupur Sharma and others including the founder and CEO of the news portal and editor of its Hindi language publications claimed that the West Bengal government and its “authoritarian Calcutta Police” are misusing FIRs and “brute police powers” to intimidate journalists.
The plea claimed that one of the FIRs lodged pertained to a news report published by the web portal in October last year. It has also sought a direction to exclude the role of police in the matter of deletion of content on the internet “particularly since there exists a regulatory mechanism for overseeing such content” and restricting any mischievous contents.
