Supreme Court issues notice to Meghalaya Govt. on journalist's plea to quash FIR against her

Supreme Court issues notice to Meghalaya Govt. on journalist's plea to quash FIR against her

The Supreme Court of India (SC) on receiving a plea by Senior Journalist Patricia Mukhim of Shillong Times issued a notice in appeal to the Meghalaya Government against the Meghalaya High Court's (HC) judgment wherein it refused to quash Criminal Proceedings against her

Ms. Mukhim (petitioner) has challenged the judgment of the HC before the SC wherein the HC had dismissed her plea to quash an FIR against her for a Facebook post condemning violence against the non-tribal community in the State of Meghalaya.

It was submitted that the HC had passed an erroneous order wherein it had ignored settled precedent and declined to exercise powers vested in it under Section 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

A Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Indu Malhotra, and Vineet Saran heard the arguments on behalf of the petitioner and issued notice to the Meghalaya government on Mukhim's plea and the SC has also sought a response from the Government by 5 February 2021.

The HC rejected Mukhim's plea for quashing the criminal case under Sections 153A, 500, and 505(c) of the Indian Penal Code against herand had opined that she was prima facie guilty of the offense of mischief stating that her Facebook post "apparently seeks to promote disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between two communities."

Ms. Mukhim in her post on Facebook had sought action by the State Government against an attack on some non-tribal boys in Meghalaya. The post was referred to an attack on 3 July 2020, on a group of non-tribal boys by some unidentified youths at a basketball court in the Lawsohtun area of Shillong.

She had said that the government of Meghalaya has been miserably failed to control the crime rate and mentioned that there have been continuous attacks on non-tribal people and attackers have never been arrested since 1979. On 6 July 2020, an FIR was filed against her for the said post by the village council alleging that her post was inciting communal tensions and it was defamatory in nature.

She had approached the Apex Court against the order of the HC. The petition read that the petitioner had been facing harassment for speaking the truth and seeking enforcement of rule of law against perpetrators of hate crime is not an offense.

It further stated that by rejecting her plea the HC had allowed "victimization, persecution, abuse of process of law and also stifling of the fundamental rights of the Petitioner under Articles 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution of India".

The petition of Ms. Mukhim stated that the purpose of her Facebook post was to "Appeal for impartial enforcement of rule of law; equal treatment before the law of all citizens; condemnation of targeted violence against members of a minority group; an end to impunity for violence & thereby ensure peace & harmony between communities & groups."

The petition stated that the order of the HC is ex-facie illegal and perverse. That refusal of quashing of the criminal proceedings against the Petitioner has caused grave prejudice to her fundamental rights.