New Delhi: The Allahabad high court has quashed an FIR against a man held for tweeting against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath and said dissent is a hallmark of a democracy. The court also held that observations on the law and order of a state is a constitutionally protected right of a citizen, reported LiveLaw.
One Yashwant Singh had tweeted that Adityanath “has transformed the state into a jungleraj in which no law and order prevails,” according to Indian Express.
Based on Singh’s tweet, the state government had booked him under Section 66-D of the Information and Technology Act (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) and Section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code.
Hearing a writ petition filed by Singh, the division bench of Justice Pankaj Naqvi and Justice Vivek Agarwal said: “Expressing dissent on law and order situation in the State, is a hallmark of a constitutional liberal democracy like ours, constitutionally protected under Article 19 of the Constitution.”
The bench further said that an expression of dissent against the functioning of the state government or the law and order situation did not constitute a crime.
Singh had urged the court to quash the FIR lodged against him. His counsel, Dharmendra Singh, submitted that the right to dissent is a fundamental right and that “mere dissent does not amount to criminality.” He had also argued that the FIR was lodged with a malafide intent to threaten and intimidate the petitioner so that he stopped expressing his dissent against the state government.
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The court also held that no offence was made out under either sections under which Singh had been booked.
As for Section 66-D IT Act it noted: “We after analysing the above provisions, qua allegation made in the FIR do not find even remotely a commission of offence under Section 66-D, as said provision relates to cheating by personation. It is not the case of prosecution that while committing the overt act, the petitioner either tweeted using other’s twitter handle or was there any allegation of cheating. No offence under Section 66-D I.T. Act is made out.”
The Bench also said no case was made out under Section 500 of IPC. It said: “In so far, Section 500 IPC is concerned, same is also not made out, as the alleged tweet cannot be said to fall within the mischief of defamation.”
The Adityanath government has previously been intolerant of criticism, especially on social media.
In March this year, a district lawyer in Kanpur, Abdul Hannan, was charged with sedition for retweeting a video of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath while calling him a ‘terrorist’.
In April, Lucknow city police arrested journalist Prashant Kanojia for making “objectionable remarks” about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath on social media. This was his second arrest for a social media post. He was released on bail after several months.
In the same month, Uttar Pradesh Police booked The Wire‘s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan over comments on Twitter against Adityanath conducting Ram Navami festivities amidst a pandemic.