Spell out how case of promoting enmity between different groups made out against Editors Guild members, asks Supreme Court

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, September 15

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the complainant against four members of the Editors Guild of India (EGI) to spell out how a case of promoting enmity between different ethnic groups was made out against them in Manipur.

A Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud — which extended the protection from coercive action granted to four EGI members further by two weeks – asked the complainant to respond to the EGI members’ petition seeking quashing of the FIRs lodged by the Manipur Police.

The Manipur Police have registered an FIR against the Editors Guild of India President Seema Mustafa and its members Seema Guha, Bharat Bhushan and Sanjay Kapoor – who were part of a fact-finding team that visited the state to examine how the local media reported the violence – for their September 2 report that indicted the local press for biased reporting.

“Even if the EGI’s report is assumed to be false, making false statements in an article, by itself, was not an offence under Section 153A of the IPC (Promoting enmity between different groups)… You have to establish that the ingredients of the offence are being made out in my complaint,” the CJI told senior counsel Guru Krishnakumar, who represented the complainants.

A complaint or an FIR could not be treated as an encyclopedia and that an investigation had to take place, Krishnakumar submitted.

“You have to show us in a case like this your complaint – does it even make out a whisper of the ingredients of the offence? Your entire complaint is a counter-narrative of the government… You have basically put forth a counter-narrative, assuming that what they have said is false,” the CJI told Krishnakumar.

“Making a false statement in an article is not an offence under Section 153A. It may be incorrect. Incorrect things are reported all across the country every day. Will you prosecute journalists for 153A?” the CJI noted.

On behalf of the Manipur Government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that the EGI members may continue to be protected and their petition should be transferred to the Delhi High Court, if the Bench wanted to.

On September 11, the Bench had wondered if FIRs could be registered against EGI members for a report they published on the local media’s coverage of the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur.

“It is a report, after all. The basic question is what they are arguing is this– that they have done a report. That is a matter of their subjective opinion. Can that really be…? This is not one of the cases where somebody was there on the ground and committed some offence… They published a report,” the Bench had told Mehta.

The Bench also issued certain procedural directions in connection with the cases relating to ethnic violence in the state.