Disha pleads HC seeking restraint on Delhi Police from leaking private chat
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court said on Thursday that a plea filed by detained climate activist Disha Ravi, seeking to restrain the city police from leaking information related to its investigation of the “toolkit” related to the farmers’ protest to the media, needed to be considered even as the police denied responsibility for any such leaks.
Justice Prathiba M Singh, who will hear the petition on Friday, issued notice to the News Broadcasters Association and two news channels — Network 18 and Times Now — on Ravi’s plea that the police had prejudged her guilt in the matter and had been putting out a “biased and defamatory narrative”. Emails sent to the channels by HT had elicited no response as of press time.
Court seeks affidavit
The court also asked the police to file an affidavit after solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta and additional solicitor general Chetan Sharma, appearing for the police, told the court that Delhi police had not leaked any investigation material contained in the first information report against Ravi to the media.
Ravi, 22, was arrested on February 13 from her home in Bengaluru and produced before a Delhi court on February 14 for her alleged involvement in sharing the toolkit (for creating and amplifying an online campaign) related to the ongoing farmers’ protest on Delhi’s borders with Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
Ravi broke down in the courtroom and said she had edited two lines in the toolkit in support of the farmers’ movement against three agricultural reform laws.
The same document was shared on social media by Thunberg and later deleted. Ravi’s plea, filed in the high court, said that she was “severely aggrieved and prejudiced by the media trial surrounding her arrest and the ongoing investigation, where she is being viscerally attacked by the police and several media houses.”
Cops behind the leak, says lawyer
On Thursday, senior advocate Akhil Sibal appearing for Ravi, told the court that the police was behind the leak of information.
He also sought a statement by the police that no information on the case would be shared with the media in future. The solicitor general opposed this and said the demand was designed to attract media attention. In her petition, Ravi said that police took away her mobile phone on February 13 and forced her to provide them with the credentials of her private accounts.
“Thus, only police had access to the contents of Ravi’s private conversations and any leaks of the same necessarily constitutes the commission of a cognizable offence and is a violation of the petitioner’s dignity, reputation, and fundamental right to privacy, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution,” the petition said. The plea has also said the police first “leaked investigative material” such as her Whatsapp chats which were only in their possession. It said that the chats were published and disseminated by various media houses.
The petition has also claimed that the “media houses published one-sided, defamatory suggestive innuendo, and half truths about the petitioner”.