New Delhi: Delhi freelance journalist Prashant Kanojia, arrested by the UP Police from his east Delhi residence on Saturday and put behind the bars for sharing a post on Twitter and Facebook against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, was on Tuesday granted bail by the Supreme Court and ordered to be released immediately.
"The police can proceed against him, but arrest? No," the court said while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by the journalist's wife on Monday for an urgent hearing. It said the proceedings against the journalist will go on as per the law.
Even while deprecating and disapproving his posts against the chief minister, the Vacation Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Ajay Rastogi said it is granting bail since the fundamental right to liberty is "sacrosanct" and "non-negotiable" and it disapproves of the deprivation of right to liberty to a citizen by the State.
Kanojia's wife, Jagisha Arora, had moved the Supreme Court seeking relief for her husband, noting that his fault that he happened to share a post of another woman making allegations against the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. Jagisha also participated on Monday in a spontaneous protest march at Press Club of India to press for immediate release of all journalists booked by the UP Police and illegally smuggled out of Delhi without being produced in any city court.
The woman, who put the post on social media, was also arrested by the police. Others arrested in the case, including two journalists of a TV channel, have to slog in jail since the petition before the Apex Court was limited to arrest of Kanojia.
Defending the journalists’ arrest for the social media post, Additional Solicitor General Vikramjeet Banerjee told the court on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh police that such inflammatory tweets were also made in the past by Kanojia.
"He has been making inflammatory tweets in the past not only with respect to caste related matters but also gods and goddesses and that’s why he was arrested," the Additional SJ contended and sought rejection of the petition since Kanojia is in the judicial custody and his whereabouts are known to all. So, a habeas corpus petition does not hold good.
"The law is very clear. A person cannot be deprived of his rights. Even if it is an Article 32 petition, the Supreme Court can entertain it. The Supreme Court can't keep its hands folded when there is deprivation of right to liberty," the Bench said.
The court also questioned the 11-day judicial custody give to the journalist and said, "In the facts of the case, a person can't be allowed to stand 11 days behind bars. We are not approving what the journalist has tweeted/posted on social media. The person is behind the bars, which is troubling us. He should be immediately released on bail,"
It said the arrest of the journalist simply on the basis of some posts is against the liberty of a person. The Bench observed that even courts have to bear the brunt of social media. "Sometimes even we have to suffer the brunt of social media. Sometimes it is just and sometimes it is unjust but we have to exercise our power," it said.
Kanojia’s arrest by the police had sparked quite a row in the capital with the Editors Guild of India strongly criticising the act of arrest as "authoritarian misuse of laws." The controversial video that was shared by Kanojia shows a woman speaking to reporters of various media organisations outside the chief minister's office in Lucknow, claiming that she had sent a marriage proposal to Adityanath.
