Father of Manipur activist moves SC; claims son under preventive detention for criticising BJP leaders advocating Cow dung as COVID cure

Father of Manipuri activist Erendro Leichombam, who was booked under the National Security Act (NSA) for a Facebook post on the state BJP chief’s death from Covid-19, has moved Supreme Court challenging his detention (L Rghumani Singh vs District Magistrate, Imphal West, District, Manipur)..Leichombam, who holds a postgraduate degree in public administration from Harvard University and is a former associate of activist Irom Sharmila, had for long spoken against state repression and militarisation, according to reports..The plea filed through advocate Shadan Farasat stated that the detention of the activist is a reprisal for his criticism against Bharatiya Janata Party leaders for advocating cow-dung and cow-urine as cures for COVID. "Erendro, a Manipuri political activist, has been preventively detained solely to punish him for his criticism of Bhartiya Janta Party (“BJP”) leaders for advocating cow-dung and cow-urine as cures for COVID," the petition said. It is a shocking instance of misuse of preventive detention law to stifle completely innocuous speech that is fully constitutionally protected and was made in public interest, the petition further stated. .It was also submitted that the detention of the activist was in contempt of the April 30, 2021 order of the Supreme Court in the suo motu case of COVID-19 in which a Bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud had observed that no one should be punished for critiquing COVID policies over social media. ."For this criticism, Erendro has spent 40 days in custody as of the date of filing of the petition: 4 days in police custody pursuant to criminal cases initiated for the criticism, and the remaining 36 days in preventive detention after grant of bail," the petition stated. .As the second wave of COVID-19 was taking hold in India, several BJP leaders started advocating cow-urine and cow dung for prevention and as cure for COVID-19. In light of this, Erendro posted the following message on Facebook on May 13, 2021: “The cure for Corona is not cow dung & cow urine. The cure is science & common sense Professor ji RIP”.The statement was made in the context of the death of the President of the Manipur BJP due to COVID-19 and it criticised the unscientific position taken and misinformation being spread by several BJP politicians regarding cow-urine and cow-dung being effective in preventing/treating COVID-19..Many BJP leaders had filed complaint against the activist and soon thereafter he was arrested. Though he was granted bail in some of the cases, he continued to be in detention. The plea stated that the grounds of detention is a virtual reproduction of the Manipur police’s request for remand dated May 17, 2021 in FIR No.76(5) 2021. "There is no independent or additional analysis in the impugned grounds of detention," the plea said. .It was further submitted that even old social media posts criticising the Central government was cited as ground for detention. ."It is a settled position of law that statements of criticism of politicians or government office bearers, no matter how harsh, do not by themselves amount to a disruption of “public order”, unless there is clear evidence to show that such statements could lead to incidents (such as rioting) which would disturb ‘public order’," the petitioner contended. .The petitioner submitted that even though District Magistrate, Imphal supplanted normal criminal law by his detention order, this was done without him "assessing and satisfying himself as to whether these criminal proceedings would have been sufficient to detract/prevent Erendro from engaging in prejudicial activities, vitiating the Detention Order."