Karnataka High Court stays investigation against YouTuber Ajeet Bharti based on FIR lodged by KPCC
The High Court of Karnataka on Monday stayed investigation against Ajeet Bharti, a Noida-based YouTuber and journalist, for allegedly posting a video about Rahul Gandhi on his social media account.
The city police had recently gone to Noida to arrest Mr. Bharti but the Uttar Pradesh police had objected to their action without securing warrant as per the law.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the interim order on the petition filed by Mr. Bharti challenging the First Information Report registered against him by the Bengaluru city police based on a complaint lodged by B.K Bopanna of the legal cell of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). The petitioner was booked for spreading false news and fabricated propaganda violating Sections 153A, 504, and 505 of the Indian Penal Code.
The petitioner had put up the social media post referring to Mr. Gandhi by quoting the reports published in two leading English newspapers. The newspapers had quoted “former Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam’s statement that Mr. Gandhi promised his close aides to overturn the Ayodhya Ram Temple verdict if the party gets elected to power at the Centre.” Mr. Krishnam was expelled from the Congress.
If the petitioner’s post is a result of certain newspaper reports, which were also a claim by a certain former Congress leader, it becomes a claim versus claim, and therefore, the genesis of the problem lies in the claim made in newspaper reports, the court noted.
“The very subject that it is fabricated propaganda, is contrary to the records, as the national newspapers had already carried what the petitioner had tweeted. Therefore, it is for the State Public Prosecutor to steer clear the truthfulness or otherwise of the afore-quoted statements of the ex-Congressman. Till such steering clear would happen, no further investigation can be permitted against the petitioner,” the court said.
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