HW News Network had filed a writ petition in the Apex court last week challenging the police action.
New Delhi : The Supreme Court today issued notice to Tripura government over two FIR filed against HW News Network Journalists. The bench headed by Justice D. Y. Chandrachud also stayed all further proceedings pursuant to the FIRs dated 14.11.2021 and 18.11.2021.
The court also granted 4 weeks’ time for filing the counter-affidavit, with liberty to the petitioners to serve the standing counsel for the state of Tripura.
Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing HW News Network, submitted, “The journalists were picked up and then there was the FIR. They have now been granted bail. But another FIR is also registered. The difficulty that is faced is that you report the news, 1 FIR is registered, and then you register a second really to say that we have now established that in the first FIR, the journalists are wrong. This is really untenable and not justified”.
Justice Chandrachud, after hearing this, ordered: “We will issue notice in this matter. Stay of all further proceedings pursuant to 14.11.2021 FIR at Tripura.”
HW News Network had filed a writ petition in the Apex court last week challenging the police action, saying that the reporters were doing only ground reporting of facts based on versions given by the victims of the violence.
HW News Network, in its writ petition, had stated: “The petition has been filed in relation to the targeted abuse of criminalising the reporting by petitioners and its correspondents/ reporters and illegal detention in relation to, reporting of events regarding violence qua minorities in the State of Tripura during the second half of the month of October 2021.”
“If the State is allowed to criminalize the very act of fact-finding and unbiased reporting then the only facts that will come in the public domain are those that are convenient to the State due to the ‘chilling effect on the freedom of speech and expression of members of civil society. If the quest for truth and reporting thereof itself is criminalized then the victim in the process is the idea of justice,” HW News Network had argued in its petition.
The network had also argued that the FIRs against its journalist amount to “targeted harassment of press”.
HW News Network had demanded quashing of both the FIRs filed against its journalist by Tripura Police.
Reacting on the stay ordered by the top court on FIR proceedings, HW News Network’s Managing Director Ganesh Jagtap said: “We have full faith in judiciary. Let the law take its own course. We are confident that the truth will be vindicated in the end.”
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