New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed a Telangana High Court order that upheld police custody of two women journalists booked for alleged circulation of a video with “derogatory” comments against Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on a social media platform.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta agreed to hear the plea challenging the high court’s October 13 order and sought a response from the state of Telangana.
“Issue notice, returnable in four weeks. In the meantime, the effect and operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed,” the bench said.
Senior advocate Siddharth Dave and advocate P Mohith Rao appeared for petitioners Pogadadabnda Revathi and Bandi Sandhya.
Revathi is the Managing Director of Pulse News, and Sandhya is its reporter.
The plea said the petitioners, after being granted bail by a trial court, were being taken into police custody for questioning, which was against the settled principles of law laid down by the top court in a catena of decisions.
It said no cogent reasons were assigned for taking the petitioners into police custody after 200 days of securing bail, and when they were continuously appearing before the investigating officer for probe in line with the conditions laid down in the bail order.
The plea said the investigation officer had not placed on record anything to substantiate the reasons for police custody after securing bail.
“It is submitted that this is a classic case of the police high-handedness of the state on the senior journalists of the society to please their political superiors and to harass the life of the petitioners and as such the order granting police custody is mechanical, un-reasoned and liable to be set aside,” the plea said.
It said that on March 10 this year, an FIR was registered for the alleged offences under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
On March 17, a trial court granted bail to the petitioners in the case.
The plea said that on September 26, the sessions judge at Nampally, Hyderabad, passed an order allowing the petition filed by the police and directed them to take the petitioners into custody for questioning from October 13 to October 15, even though the petitioners were already granted bail.
The plea said that on October 8, the petitioners filed a petition before the high court against the sessions judge’s order.
On October 13, the high court upheld that order, noting that custody was sought so that the police could seize materials like mobile phones, laptops, desktops, hard disks and other storage devices where the alleged abusive videos were stored.
“The ground raised by the police in the police custody petition that they need to seize the other material including storage devices, requires consideration. Hence, by considering the said ground, the petition seeking police custody has to be allowed,” the high court had said.
The FIR alleged that “abusive and derogatory” comments made against the chief minister made rounds on the social media platform X.
It was alleged in the FIR that in the video, a representative from Pulse TV was seen interviewing an unknown individual, who proceeded to make “derogatory and abusive statements” against the chief minister.
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