Delhi Police register FIR against ‘The Wire’ on BJP leader Amit Malviya’s complaint

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 29

Taking cognisance of the complaint filed by BJP IT department head Amit Malviya accusing news portal ‘The Wire’ of “cheating and forgery” and “tarnishing” his reputation, the Delhi Police on Saturday filed an FIR against the media outlet and its editors.

Malviya had on Friday said he would pursue criminal and civil proceedings against the portal over stories, which were since retracted, that insinuated the BJP leader enjoyed the privilege on Meta platforms of having any post taken down which he believed was against the BJP’s interests.

In his complaint, Malviya sought registration of an FIR under Sections 420, 468, 469, 471, 500 r/w 120B and 34 of the IPC.

Officials said those who have been named in the FIR include The Wire, its founding editors Siddharth Vardarajan, Siddharth Bhatia and MK Venu, and Jahnavi Sen, the deputy editor and executive news producer.

The BJP leader’s complaint read: “I am filing the present complaint for the offences of cheating, forgery for the purpose of harming the reputation, using as genuine a forged document or electronic record and defamation amongst other provisions of the IPC by the accused.”

Through ‘The Wire’ has apologised to its readers and withdrawn the stories as questions, including from experts, mounted over their veracity, the BJP leader had noted that it has refrained from apologising to him despite “maligning and tarnishing my reputation and causing serious harm to my professional career”.

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