New Delhi: Journalists are entitled to protection in sedition cases under a 1962 verdict so long as they do not incite violence against the government, the Supreme Court held on Thursday while quashing an FIR against Vinod Dua for his alleged comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his YouTube show last year.
The veteran scribe had uploaded a video on March 30 last year on ”The Vinod Dua Show on YouTube” allegedly asserting that the Prime Minister used deaths and terror attacks at Pathankot and Pulwama to garner votes.
The FIR lodged at Kumarsain in Shimla by a Himachal Pradesh-based BJP leader had also alleged that Dua had tried to spread false information such as the government did not have enough testing facilities for COVID-19.
The verdict by a bench of justices Uday Umesh Lalit and Vineet Saran said: “We are…of the firm view that the prosecution of the petitioner for the offences punishable under Sections 124A and 505 (1) (b) of the IPC3 would be unjust.
“Those offences, going by the allegations in the FIR and other attending circumstances, are not made out at all and any prosecution in respect thereof would be violative of the rights of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution”.
