The Supreme Court has granted interim protection to journalist Abhishek Upadhyay after an FIR was filed against him for questioning “Thakur raj”, or Rajput dominance, in Uttar Pradesh under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
The apex court also sent a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and sought its response to the plea filed by Upadhyay, a freelance journalist, seeking to quash the FIR lodged against him.
Newslaundry had earlier reported that the journalists were booked after Upadhyay posted on X about the rise in Thakur dominance, listing 40 top state government officials who purportedly belong to the Thakur community. He also asked if appointments were being made on the basis of caste.
Soon an FIR was lodged against Upadhyay at the Hazratganj Police Station in Lucknow for “spreading false information”, “harming national integration”, and defamation. It also named journalist Mamata Tripathy who had tweeted the same content, attributing it to Upadhyay.
Upadhyay told Newslaundry at the time that the FIR was an attempt to “scare journalists from asking questions and doing such stories”.
The court today said, “In democratic nations, freedom to express one’s views are respected. The rights of the journalists are protected under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India. Merely because writings of a journalist are perceived as criticism of the Government, criminal cases should not be slapped against the writer.”
As per Bar and Bench, the court also clarified that the protection granted to the journalist would extend to all future FIRs or criminal cases that may be lodged against them over the same issue. However, it also questioned Upadhyay’s lawyer for making CM Yogi Adityanath a party to the case.
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