New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked 16 individuals for posting alleged defamatory material against judges of the Supreme Court and the Andhra Pradesh high court on social media, officials said on Monday.
The Bureau had taken over the investigation in 12 cases registered by the state CID, on the directions of the Andhra Pradesh HC. The complaints were registered on the basis of a complaint filed by the registrar general of the court, B. Rajasekhar.
According to LiveLaw, the 16 people have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 153A (promoting enmity), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form).
The complaint by the registrar claimed that “key personnel, who are occupying posts of prominence in the state of Andhra Pradesh” were intentionally targeting the judges or gave interviews, speeches or published social media posts which attributed “motives, caste and corrupt allegations to some of the Supreme Court judges and High Court judges in delivering orders/judgments”. On social media, the posts were “abusive, life threatening and intimidating”, the complaint says.
On October 12, the high court directed the CBI to probe the case and submit a report to it in a sealed cover within eight weeks, wondering whether there was a “larger conspiracy” behind the social media posts.
While handing over the probe to the central agency, the high court had expressed serious displeasure over the CID investigation in its October 12 order.
The next hearing of the case is on December 14.
The HC order came days after Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy sent a letter to Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde, in which he accused the Andhra Pradesh high court and Supreme Court judge N.V. Ramana of political bias and even corruption. He claimed that the court was favouring his rival N. Chandrababu Naidu, adding that the HC was being used to “destabilise and topple” his democratically elected government.
Though the HC did not take Jagan’s name in the order, it mentioned other high-level functionaries of the YSR Congress Party, including MP Nandigam Suresh and former MLA Amanchi Krishna Mohan. It had noted that the speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and the deputy chief minister had also not restrained themselves from making “scathing remarks” against the judiciary. “Member of Rajya Sabha, namely, Vijayasai Reddy, has joined together in a move to make scathing remarks against the High Court.
“Their comments are perilous to democracy and amounted to an attack on the judiciary. If some ordinary person makes any comment against the government, cases are promptly registered against such persons.
“When persons in positions made comments against the judges and the courts, why have cases not been filed? Looking at things, we are left to infer that a war has been declared on the judiciary,” the bench of Justices Rakesh Kumar and J. Uma Devi had commented orally during a hearing.
“Such comments from the key personnel who are occupying posts of prominence, authoritative and constitutional in nature, targeting the judges, had severely affected the reputation of the judiciary as an independent institution. Thus, it appears that a concerted effort has been made to malign the institution, having a larger conspiracy,” the court had noted.
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The CBI office in Visakhapatnam registered the case under various sections, including 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 67 of the Information Technology Act.
Pleas have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking action against Jagan for levelling ‘unsubstantiated’ allegations against Justice Ramana and the Andhra Pradesh HC. While the hearing was scheduled to begin on Monday, it was deferred after Justice U.U. Lalit recused himself.