The Supreme Court has quashed the sedition case registered against journalist Vinod Dua for his YouTube telecast on the Delhi riots last year. Dua was charged with sedition after a local BJP leader in Himachal Pradesh lodged an FIR against the Padma awardee accusing him of spreading fake news, causing public nuisance, printing defamatory material, and making statements amounting to public mischief. The verdict was delivered by a Bench of Justices UU Lalit and Vineet Saran.
“We have quashed the proceedings and FIR. Every journalist is entitled to the protection under the Kedar Nath Singh judgment(which defined the ambit of offence of sedition under Section 124A
,” the Court ordered.
On July 20 last year, the top court had extended till further orders the protection granted to Dua from any coercive action in the case. Mr. Dua had approached the Supreme Court after the Himachal Pradesh Police appeared at his residence on June 12 last year and ordered him to be present at the remote Kumarsain police station — at least a 20-hour drive from Delhi — the very next day (June 13) at 10 a.m.
While quashing the case, the top court rejected Mr Dua’s request that no FIR be registered against any journalist with 10 years’ experience unless cleared by a panel headed by a High Court judge.
On May 6, 2020, BJP leader Shyam had lodged an FIR against Dua at Kumarsain police station in Shimla district. The journalist was asked to join the probe. Shyam had alleged that Dua, in his YouTube show, accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using “deaths and terror attacks” to get votes.
Besides seeking quashing of the FIR, Dua, in the plea, had sought “exemplary damages” for “harassment”. The senior journalist said freedom of the press is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
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The plea has said the top court has been “emphasizing for distancing the police from the ruling party in the state” but “none of the major political parties which are in power in various states are ready to give up their control over the police”.
“There is a recent trend against the media where state governments which do not find a particular telecast to be in sync with their political ideologies register FIRs against persons of the media primarily to harass them and to intimidate them so that they succumb to the line of the state or else face the music at the hands of the police,” the plea has claimed.
