The Supreme Court has directed stay on FIRs registered against the women journalists for reporting on communal violence in Tripura, as well as issued a notice while asking them to file a reply. The journalists were reporting on communal tensions in Tripura following recent attacks on mosques and properties owned by Muslims.

The bench comprising of Chief Justice of India Justice N.V. Ramana and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud heard a petition filed in the Supreme Court, where Tripura Police said the reports of journalists were promoting enmity between two groups and spreading communal hatred by publishing baseless news about the violence.

 “If the search for truth is made criminal and its reporting will be made a crime then it would be curbing the fundamental right of freedom of expression and freedom of speech, they were reporting on the on the basis of the statements made by the victims of violence and the facts given by them,”

-the petitioners submitted.

The petitioners have sought quashing of the cases registered against them in their petition. At the same time, they are demanding transfer of the case to Delhi, as there is a threat to their lives. Therefore, the matter should be transferred from Tripura to Delhi.

Two women journalists, Samridhi Sakunia and Swaran Jha of HW News, and the editor Aarti Gargi of the web portal “Theos Connect” have filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the case registered against them.

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The Tripura Police had said the journalists were arrested for allegedly maligning the image of the Tripura government. HW News Network journalists Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarna Jha were granted bail by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gomati Judicial District, Udaipur Subhra Nath. They have been named in two separate FIRs, one at Kakraban police station in Gomati district and one at Fatikroy police station in Unakoti district.

Both were arrested for spreading fake news on social media that a mosque was burnt in the Gomati district of Tripura and a copy of the Quran was damaged. Journalists and media rights groups had criticised their detention and called for their immediate release. Their employer, HW News Network, also accused officials of harassment claiming that the Tripura government was preventing them from reporting facts through sheer harassment and targeting of the press.

A Tripura court on Monday granted bail to two women journalists who were arrested by Tripura police after their brief detention in Assam yesterday on a Hindu right-wing group Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s complaint. The arrest had led to great outrage among the media fraternity and social media.

The Tripura Police had said the journalists were arrested for allegedly maligning the image of the Tripura government.

HW News Network journalists Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarna Jha were granted bail by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gomati Judicial District, Udaipur Subhra Nath. They have been named in two separate FIRs, one at Kakraban police station in Gomati district and one at Fatikroy police station in Unakoti district.

Both were arrested on Sunday for spreading fake news on social media that a mosque was burnt in the Gomati district of Tripura and a copy of the Quran was damaged. They were reporting on religious tensions in Tripura following recent attacks on mosques and properties owned by Muslims.

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Journalists and media rights groups had criticised their detention and called for their immediate release. Their employer, HW News Network, also accused officials of harassment claiming that the Tripura government was preventing them from reporting facts through sheer harassment and targeting of the press.

The police complaint shared by Sakunia on Twitter shows that they were booked for criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity between religious groups.

The constitutional validity of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code which deals with sedition has been challenged yet again by a petition in the Supreme Court, making it the fifth such plea.

Women journalists Patricia Mukhim and Anuradha Bhasin have filed the petition, claiming the use of the provision has continued unrestrained to intimidate, silence and punish journalists, and the livid experience of the last six decades has led to this conclusion that unless the provision is deleted from the IPC, it will continue to ‘haunt and hinder’ the full realisation of the right to free speech and the freedom of press.

The plea referred to data procured from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which showed a steep rise in the cases of sedition, with a 160 percent rise from 2016 to 2019, simultaneously accompanied by an abysmally low conviction rate, which dropped to 3.3 percent in 2019.

It stated that in view of the evolution of jurisprudence of the fundamental rights of citizens since 1970 till 2021, the provision is liable to be struck down as being ultra vires Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.

It referred to various Supreme Court verdicts, starting from RC Cooper vs Union of India (1970), where an 11-Judge Bench had held that the real test of constitutionality lay not in the object of the legislation, but in the “real impact,” it has on the life of an individual.

The plea then referred to the case of KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017), where the test of manifest arbitration was applied. The provision was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1962 in the case of Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar.

The latest petition pointed out that the said judgement upheld the constitutionality of Section 124A IPC when it was classified as a non-cognisable offence, which is no longer valid law, as the offence of sedition is now a cognizable and non-bailable offence since 1973 under the Code of Criminal Procedure, and consequently its vires and impact on life and liberty needs fresh judicial scrutiny.

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The three tier categorisation of the punishment for the offence of sedition, ranging from life imprisonment to fine simpliciter, without any legislative guidance for sentencing, amounts to granting unbridled discretion to judges, which is hit by the doctrine of arbitrariness and violates Article 14.

The constitutionality of sedition as a restriction on free speech does not meet the test of necessity and proportionality. In this regard it is submitted that object of “public order” u/Article 19(2) can be achieved by less restrictive means than a provision which is so overboard and casts a chilling effect on the exercise of the right to free speech and expression. It is also stated that the issue of words like hatred, disaffection, disloyalty are incapable of precise construction, and are hit by the doctrine of vagueness and overbreadth, thereby falling foul of Article 14 of the Constitution.