Breaking: Supreme Court stays potential arrests of Shashi Tharoor, Rajdeep Sardesai & ors for reports, tweets on Farmers Protests

The Supreme Court today stayed the potential arrests of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and other journalists for alleged misreporting on the violence that took place in Delhi on January 26 in the wake of the farmers protests (Shashi Tharoor v. Union of India). .The Bench of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian also issued notice in the plea filed by Tharoor and the others seeking quashing of the FIRs filed against them for allegedly "misreporting" and "spreading disharmony" over tweets and reports on the ongoing farmers' protests..Appearing for the petitioners today, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal pleaded for protection from coercive steps on the FIRs filed against the petitioners. He said,"Please protect me till the period of notice. Investigating agency is now in Delhi. They can arrest me. Section 124 has been added now.".CJI Bobde then asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta,"Are you going to arrest them?"Mehta replied,"I am before your lordship. Please hear it tomorrow."To this, CJI Bobde responded, "We will hear it after two weeks. We will stay arrest in the meanwhile.".Appearing for editors of The Caravan, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi said,"There is no religious sentiment which has been hurt. It was a January 26 report on some person being shot and then we corrected it to something else.".Mehta then countered,"I can show you what horrendous effect these tweets have with such lakhs of followers.".However, the Court ultimately decided to stay the potential arrests of the petitioners and issue notice in the matter returnable in two weeks..Congress leader Shashi Tharoor and various journalists including India Today's Rajdeep Sardesai and The Caravan's Vinod K Jose had approached the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the FIRs registered against them for allegedly "misreporting" and "spreading disharmony" on the ongoing farmers' protests..The others who have moved the Supreme Court for relief are journalists Mrinal Pande, Zafar Agha, Paresh Nath and Anand Nath. The petitioners have termed the FIRs as frivolous, urging that they ought to be cancelled.The petitions filed through Karanjawala & Co. invokes the petitioners' right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and their freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a)..Shashi Tharoor, Rajdeep Sardesai and others move Supreme Court to quash FIRs over "misreporting" on Farmers' Protests.An FIR was reportedly filed against the petitioners by the Gurugram police last week following a complaint by one Pankaj Singh, who has accused them of having spread false information. Another FIR was filed on the same matter in Noida..Sardesai was recently taken off air for two weeks by India Today for tweeting that a farmer who had died amid the protests had been "killed allegedly in police firing".The FIRs were filed over several tweets and reports on the violence that took place on Republic Day amid the farmers' tractor rally, which was part of the ongoing protest against the three Farm Acts recently introduced by the Central government..[Read Order]