FIR against journalist for social media post against UP CM illegal, arbitrary: Congress

Congress leader and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Sunday urged the Allahabad High Court to take suo motu cognizance of the matter.

Uttar Pradesh Police arrested a journalist for allegedly sharing an objectionable post against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. (Image: PTI)

New Delhi: A day after the Uttar Pradesh Police arrested a journalist for allegedly sharing an objectionable post against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on social media, Congress party has come out in defence of the scribe and called the move illegal and arbitrary. Congress leader and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Sunday urged the Allahabad High Court to take suo motu cognizance of the matter.  Singhvi also took to micro-blogging site Twitter and wrote: "The detention of Prashant Kanojia for merely posting a video which fell foul of actors of State government is illegal, arbitrary and a grave miscarriage of justice. Would request the Allahabad High Court to take suo Motu cognizance of the matter." According to UP Police, journalist Prashant Kanojia was arrested for a video on Twitter and Facebook where a woman is seen speaking to reporters of various media organisations outside the CM office claiming that she had sent a marriage proposal to Adityanath. An FIR was registered against Kanojia by a sub-inspector at Hazratganj Police Station on Friday night in which it was alleged that the accused made objectionable comments against the CM and tried to malign his image. The verified Twitter handle of Kanojia @PJkanojia said that he is alumnus of IIMC and Mumbai university and is associated with some media organisations. Even the Editors Guild on Sunday condemned the arrest of a journalist, who is the editor and head of a television channel, news agency PTI reported. The Editors Guild described police action as an 'authoritarian misuse of laws' and an effort to intimidate the press. "The police action is high-handed, arbitrary and amounts to an authoritarian misuse of laws," the Guild said in a statement. The Guild sees it as an effort to intimidate the press and stifle freedom of expression, the statement said. "Whatever the accuracy of the woman's claims, to register a case of criminal defamation against the journalists for sharing it on the social media and airing it on a television channel is a brazen misuse of law," the Guild statement said. To give the police powers to arrest, provisions of Section 66 of the IT Act have also been added, it said. As with a recent case in Karnataka that the Guild spoke about, the FIR in this case is also not filed by the person allegedly affected but suo motu by the police, the Guild noted.