UDAY UMESH LALIT, J. - (1.) This petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India prays for following principal reliefs:- "a. Quash FIR No.0053 dated 06.05.2020 registered at Police Station Kumarsain, District Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. b. Direct that henceforth FIRs against persons belonging to the media with at least 10 years standing be not registered unless cleared by a committee to be constituted by every State Government, the composition of which should comprise of the Chief Justice of the High Court or a Judge designated by him, the leader of the Opposition and the Home Minister of the State."
(2.) FIR No.0053 dated 06.05.2020 was registered pursuant to Complaint made by respondent No.3 herein to the following effect:- "On 30th March, 2020, Mr. Vinod Dua, in his show namely The Vinod Dua Show on YouTube, has made unfounded and bizarre allegations (details of particular moments are provided below) by stating following facts at 5 minutes and 9 seconds of the video, he has stated that Narendra Modi has used deaths and terror attacks to garner votes. At 5 minutes and 45 seconds of the video, he claims that the government does not have enough testing facilities and has made false statements about the availability of the Personal Protective Kits (PPE) and has stated that there is no sufficient information on those. Further, he also went on to state that ventilators and sanitizer exports were stopped only on 24th March 2020. A true copy of the video link is: https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?vvijFD_tgvv8. That the said allegations are false and the claims are bizarre and unfounded. Mr. Vinod Dua has spread false and malicious news by stating that the PM has garnered votes through acts of terrorism. This directly amounts to inciting violence amongst the citizens and will definitely disturb public tranquillity. This is an act of instigating violence against the government and the Prime Minister. He also creates panic amongst the public and disturbs public peace by trying to spread false information, such as, the government does not have enough testing facilities which is absolutely false. The government has sufficient facilities to curb the pandemic and have been taking all the measures to control the pandemic. By making such false statements, Mr. Vinod Dua spread fear amongst the people. This video will only create a situation of unrest amongst the public which will result in panic and people not obeying the lockdown to come out and hoard essentials which is absolutely unnecessary. Mr. Vinod Dua has circulated these rumours with the intent to defeat the Lockdown by creating an impression that there is a complete failure of the institution and it will become hard to survive this lockdown, if not acted upon immediately. It is unfortunate that during such a pandemic, which is of such a magnitude, instead of helping out the citizens and encouraging them to stay at home, the show and the host, Mr. Vinod Dua, is only interested in raising his show's TRP and making it successful. The rumours were spread with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public or to any section of the public, whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquillity. Since the matter relates to Public health, considering the gravity and seriousness of the matter, this dishonest and fraudulent act of the Mr. Vinod Dua should be taken with utmost seriousness. The aforesaid act of Mr. Vinod Dua is an offence punishable under Sections 124-A, 268, 501 and 505 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). Unless strict action is taken, it will result in unrest in public and go against public tranquillity. Hence, you are requested to take strict appropriate legal action against Mr. Vinod Dua and punish him accordingly."
(3.) The FIR dated 06.05.2020 thus pointedly referred to two segments in the talk show uploaded on 30.03.2020 - one at 5 minutes 9 seconds and the other at 5 minutes 45 seconds and generally dealt with the drift of the assertions made by the petitioner in said talk show to submit that the actions on part of the petitioner amounted to offences punishable under penal provisions referred to in the FIR. The transcript of the relevant episode of the talk show has been placed on record and the translation of the relevant portions is :- "At present I am talking about the ongoing corona virus and whatever has happened in its context - how was our preparedness, when we were alerted and despite which why we were in slumber. When I refer to WE then I refer to the government. I present a small analysis on which a few things have been stated by P. Chidambaram in an article in the Indian Express, some of this we have also seen and you understand all of the rest very well...... Now, the national lockdown, desh bandhi, note bandhi, GST are the three big events. Our work as media, we do not stoop, we are not darbari, we are not from the government, our job is not to denigrate, our job is not also to criticize, our job is to do critical appraisal of government's work. We do not need anything from the government or anyone's complaisance. Media has to do this work but unfortunately most of the media is towing the line of the government or their stoogas. They look for support in everything to turn everything into an event of the Pradhan Sewak and to tout that as a big success. In the case of attacks on India on Pathnakot and Pulwama the same were used as political events to garner votes, surgical strikes were also used as gain politically. The air strikes by India on Balakot were also used as means of getting votes. To seek votes by turning everything into an event has become the hallmark of this government, this is our call of duty and our dharma to present these before you, so we are saying these. Further, our biggest failure has been that we do not have enough facilities to carry out testing. Undoubtedly, ICMR and Health Ministry maintain that corona in India is still in 2nd stage and has not reached in 3rd stage when community transmission takes place. At the present juncture India needs 7 lakh PPE suits, 6 lakh N95 masks and 8 crore masks of three ply. Till now we do not have any information how many we have and how many will become available by when. The ventilators needed in other countries and in India, respiratory devices and sanitizers were being exported till 24 March instead of keeping these for use in our country. Supply chains got disrupted due to blockage of roads and now it is being heard that transportation of essential goods has been allowed. It is not difficult to imagine that when the supply chains have been closed, when the shops are closed, some people had gone to the extent of fearing food riots which have not happened in our country could happen. Therefore the government is now taking steps which should have been taken at least 15 days earlier. On 11 February, ICMR had forewarned, later Rahul Gandhi did the same by writing a letter on 12 February and again 13 February but the government kept sleeping. Now, the migrant labour which is a huge issue, the people who leave their distant villages to earn their livelihoods here, who are the backbone of the cities, who help in running our lives, our drivers, our daily wagers, construction workers, tailors, all those who do small odd jobs and somehow send money back home. There are certain states like Bihar which also run on money order economy where it caused huge disruption and who started returning home. When people started returning from Mumbai on 10 March, that should have been a big signal for the government about the effect the complete lockdown in the whole country can bring about but no lessons were learnt. Besides, police did not get any instructions about how to handle this, the face of brutality and inhumanity of the police was seen and now the face of the police is also seen while distributing food and also their face of shaming those not following the lockdown. These steps could have been taken earlier also because using force is not the only way of the police. ;