SC PROTECTS CONG LEADER, JOURNOS FROM ARREST OVER ‘MISLEADING’ POSTS

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday protected Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and journalist Rajdeep Sardesai from arrest in several cases registered against them for posting “misleading” tweets over the death of a young protester during the tractor rally organised by farmers in the Capital on January 26 even as the solicitor-general of India sought to highlight the “horrendous” effect of their social media posts.

Apart from Tharoor and Sardesai, the top court also stayed arrest of five journalists — Mrinal Pande, Zafar Agha, Vinod Jose, Paresh Nath and Anant Nath — and fixed the matter for a hearing after two weeks.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde issued the interim order of protection after solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for Delhi Police and the Uttar Pradesh government, refrained from offering an assurance that Tharoor and the six journalists will not be arrested until the time the court hears the matter.

Instead, Mehta sought to emphasise the negative impact of the social media posts. “This court may not be aware of the horrendous effect these twitter handles (of Tharoor and others) have. Most of them have followings in lakhs,” he submitted.

The genesis of the cases against them were tweets in which Tharoor and Sardesai, a TV journalist, attributed the death of a protester during the tractor rally in the Capital to police firing.