SC directs no coercive action against UP journo

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed that no coercive steps be taken against a journalist in connection with four FIRs registered against her in Uttar Pradesh.

A bench headed by Justices B R Gavai, P K Mishra, and K V Viswanathan issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government, seeking its response to a petition filed by journalist Mamta Tripathi, who sought to have the FIRs quashed. Tripathi argued that the FIRs were politically motivated and frivolously filed in an attempt to stifle press freedom. According to her, the FIRs were related to certain tweets she had posted.

While hearing her plea, the bench stated, "It is directed that no coercive steps be taken against the petitioner (Tripathi) in connection with the subject articles." The case will be heard again in four weeks.

Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, who appeared for Tripathi, argued that another journalist, Abhishek Upadhyay, had earlier approached the apex court seeking the quashing of an FIR against him for a news report on the "caste dynamics of the general administration" in the state.

Referring to the Supreme Court's order on Upadhyay's plea, Dave said he was a co-accused in one of the FIRs lodged against Tripathi, and the top court had protected him from coercive steps earlier in October.

In Upadhyay's case, the court had stated that criminal cases should not be initiated against journalists simply because their writings are perceived as government criticism.

"It is pure harassment," Dave said, adding that the FIRs had been registered against journalists merely for their posts on X (formerly Twitter). In her plea, filed through advocate Amarjit Singh Bedi, Tripathi stated that the four FIRs were lodged in Ayodhya, Amethi, Barabanki, and Lucknow. "The FIRs are politically motivated, and attempts are being made to stifle press freedom by lodging frivolous FIRs against the petitioner," the plea stated.