New Delhi, Oct 14 The Supreme Court on Wednesday made absolute its earlier order protecting a journalist who had flagged alleged irregularities in the handling of donations at Ayodhya’s Ram temple from coercive action in a road rage case lodged in Ghaziabad.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi also quashed an August 22 notice issued by the Ghaziabad Police to social media platform ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) seeking some information and other digital details of journalist Abhishek Upadhyay.
While noting that a copy of the FIR in the road rage case has been supplied to Upadhyay, the bench granted him liberty to challenge the FIR before the jurisdictional high court.
The bench perused an affidavit filed by the Commissioner of Police, Ghaziabad, which said that notice was issued to the nodal officer of ‘X’ seeking information for the limited purpose of tracing the whereabouts of the petitioner who was untraceable after the FIR was lodged in August.
Senior advocate Pradeep Rai, appearing for the petitioner, said that though the FIR was lodged in August, police sought information from ‘X’ from June 1.
“You (police) have given them (‘X’) notice to provide data from three months ago. That appears to be an overkill,” the bench told the counsel appearing for Uttar Pradesh.
The bench made clear that no confidential or personal data of the petitioner can be obtained for the period prior to the occurrence of the alleged crime.
“The notice dated August 22 issued by the police to ‘X’ is hereby quashed,” it said.
The bench also granted liberty to the petitioner to approach the court seeking laying down of mandatory guidelines for collection of personal data by police during the course of investigation in cases.
On August 25, the top court gave protection to the petitioner from coercive action in the case and directed that a copy of the FIR lodged at Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram be provided to him.
In his plea, the petitioner contended that the FIR copy was not supplied to him and that police were forcing the nearby shopkeepers to delete the CCTV visuals of the relevant time.
He had claimed that the FIR was foisted in connection with his reporting on alleged corruption in Uttar Pradesh.
(PTI News)
