SC quashes FIR lodged against man over news article regarding alleged encroachment of govt land

There is no such allegation in the FIR that owing to the alleged offensive post attributable to the appellant, the complainant was provoked to such an extent that he could indulge in disturbing the public peace or commit any other offence, the bench said. we are of the firm view that allowing continuance of the proceedings pursuant to the impugned FIR against the appellant is nothing but gross abuse of process of law because the allegations as set out in the FIR do not disclose necessary ingredients of any cognisable offence, it said, while quashing the FIR.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed an FIR lodged against a man in Uttarakhand over a newspaper article regarding alleged encroachment of government land that threatened to breach public harmony. A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta said the allegations in the FIR do not disclose necessary ingredients of a cognizable offence against the appellant.

The apex court delivered its verdict on an appeal filed by Shiv Prasad Semwal against a July 2020 order of the Uttarakhand High Court, which had dismissed his plea challenging the FIR lodged for alleged offences including those under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code.

''From a bare reading of the language of section 153A IPC, it is clear that in order to constitute such offence, the prosecution must come out with a case that the words 'spoken' or 'written' attributed to the accused, created enmity or bad blood between different groups on the ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, or that the acts so alleged were prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony,'' the bench said.

It said, ''Upon careful perusal of the offending news article reproduced, it is crystal clear that there is no reference to any group or groups of people in the said article.'' The bench noted that a complaint was filed alleging that the complainant owns 1.196 hectares land situated in Tehri Garhwal district for the management of which he had formed a trust.

It noted the complainant had planned a foundation stone laying ceremony of a building on the land by then Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Trivendra Singh Rawat on March 20, 2020.

It was alleged in the complaint that in order to ''blackmail'' the complainant, the accused named him in the FIR, acting in collusion, and got published a news article in the e-newspaper wherein it was portrayed that the land on which the foundation stone was proposed to be laid was government land which had been encroached upon by the complainant, the bench noted.

The appellant had approached the high court challenging the FIR and claiming to be completely innocent. He asserted that the allegations made in it did not disclose commission of any cognisable offence.

The appellant, while pursuing his case in the high court, had averred that the news article published in the e-newspaper, of which he was the director, was entirely based on the Facebook post of a journalist and that he was not liable to face prosecution for the publication.

The apex court noted that the affidavit filed by the State of Uttarakhand before it stated that no offence was found to be made out against the newspaper during the investigation.

''Thus, essentially, we are required to examine whether the contents of the news report constitute any cognisable offence so as to justify the investigation into the allegations made in the FIR against the appellant,'' the bench said.

It said the other substantive offence which has been applied by the investigating agency was section 504 of the IPC, which deals with the offence of intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace.

''The said offence can be invoked when the insult of a person provokes him to break public peace or to commit any other offence. There is no such allegation in the FIR that owing to the alleged offensive post attributable to the appellant, the complainant was provoked to such an extent that he could indulge in disturbing the public peace or commit any other offence,'' the bench said.

''… we are of the firm view that allowing continuance of the proceedings pursuant to the impugned FIR… against the appellant is nothing but gross abuse of process of law because the allegations as set out in the FIR do not disclose necessary ingredients of any cognisable offence,'' it said, while quashing the FIR.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)