New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted protection from arrest to Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor and senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and five other scribes in cases relating to their tweets on the Republic Day tractor rally violence in the National Capital.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde and comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian also issued notices and sought responses from the Centre and others on the pleas filed by Tharoor and journalists Sardesai, Mrinal Pande, Zafar Agha, Paresh Nath, Vinod K Jose and Anant Nath.
“Nothing is going to happen,” asserted the top court bench after issuing notices to quash the multiple first information reports (FIRs) pending against them across the country including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and Delhi.
The stay on the arrest will continue till the next date of hearing, after two weeks.
Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, on behalf of the Congress MP Tharoor, sought an order saying “no coercive action till the Supreme Court takes up the case”.
The FIRs were lodged over tweets and reports on the Republic Day violence during the farmers’ tractor rally in the National Capital.
Tharoor and others were charged under laws related to sedition, promotion of enmity, and criminal conspiracy.
They had been accused of posting false, misleading posts accusing the Delhi police in the R-Day incidents.
