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A Supreme Court bench of Justices Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath today stayed further proceedings in the FIR(s) filed against 3 journalists who reported on Tripura violence.

FIRs were registered by the Tripura Police in November against journalists Samridhi Sakunia, Swarna Jha and Arti Gharghi who work for a digital news portal called HW News Network. The plea under Article 32 of the Constitution was filed by Theos Connect, which operates the news portal.

The plea states that there has been a targeted abuse of criminalising the reporting by the journalists, correspondents and reporters belonging to the news portal. The plea further claimed that the journalists were illegally detained because they reported violence meted out against the minorities in Tripura in October.

When the hearing for the matter commenced, Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra appearing for the petitioners submitted that the journalists were arrested once and then granted a bail subsequently, however another FIR has also been registered against them now.

He further submitted that there is an FIR registered whenever some sensitive news is being reported, and said that this was totally untenable and unjustified.

The Court on hearing the submissions issued notice in the matter while staying all proceedings in regard to FIRs dated November 14 and November 18. The Court further granted Tripura time of 4 weeks to file a counter to the plea.

Cause Title: Theos Connect vs State of Tripura