The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the arrest of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and six other journalists over their tweets on the Republic Day tractor rally violence at the Red Fort in New Delhi.
The apex court adjourned the matter for hearing after two weeks and issued notices on all petitions on the matter.
Chief Justice of India SA Bobde was quoted by Bar and Bench as saying, “We will hear it after two weeks we will stay arrest in the meanwhile.”
A three-judge bench of CJI Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice V Ramasubramanian heard the petitions filed by Tharoor and journalists Rajdeep Sardesai, Zafar Agha, Mrinal Pande, Vinod K Jose, Paresh Nath, and Anant Nath.
However, Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta wanted the case to be heard on Wednesday, which the court refused. Mehta was quoted by Bar and Bench as saying, “I can show you what horrendous effect these tweets have with such lakhs of followers.”
Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Jose, told the court, “I appear for editor of Caravan Magazine. There is no religious sentiment which has been hurt. It was a January 26 report on some person being shot and then we corrected it to something else.”
The petitioners had sought quashing of the FIRs against them over the tweets.
The FIRs had been filed against all of them in five states and had accused them of writing misleading posts and had been charged under IPC sections pertaining to criminal conspiracy, sedition and promoting enmity.
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