The Supreme Court registry clarified late evening on February 16, that the contempt case against journalist Rajdeep Sardesai was listed inadvertently as a suo moto contempt case. The apex court website still shows the case to be listed as SMC (Cri.) no. 2/2021

Before this clarification, several media reports were published stating that a suo moto criminal contempt case has been registered against Sardesai, based on the case status reflecting on the court’s website.

An official communication from the apex court reads, “This is in context with news item being flashed in some news channels about initiating suo motu criminal contempt proceeding against Mr Rajdeep Sardesai by Supreme Court, it is made clear that no such proceeding has been initiated against Mr Rajdeep Sardesai. However, status shown at Supreme Court website vide case no. SMC (Crl) 02/2021 has been placed inadvertently. Appropriate action to rectify the same is under process”. Sources from the court termed it an “administrative error”, reported Indian Express.

In September 2020, Attorney General KK Venugopal had refused to authorise contempt proceedings against Sardesai at the instance of Noida based law student Aastha Khurana saying that his statements “are not of so serious a nature as to undermine the majesty of the Supreme Court or lower its stature in the minds of the public”.

“The reputation of Supreme Court as one of the great pillars of our democracy has been built assiduously over the last 70 years. Trifling remarks and mere passing criticism though perhaps distasteful are unlikely to tarnish the image of the institution,” Venugopal had said while refusing consent for initiating contempt proceedings against Sardesai for his tweets.

According to Khurana, Sardesai made “disrespectful comments” and “questioned the fairness and credibility” of the “honourable court” in tweets following the judgement convicting senior advocate Prashant Bhushan of contempt and penalising him to pay Re.1 as fine. In his tweet Sardesai had said, “Clearly court looking to wriggle out of an embarrassment of its own making”. The petition also referred to a tweet where Sardesai suggested the top court should apologise for its judgment against Bhushan. Another tweet cited in the petition was where Sardesai highlighted how the apex court fast-tracked Bhushan’s case while habeas corpus petitions relating to illegal detentions in Kashmir remained pending.

The petition stated that Sardesai “has also passed various comments against the ex-judges and ex-Chief Justice of India in the past and… tried to teach the hon’ble judges their duties and responsibilities”.

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UP Police have registered an FIR against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, journalists Rajdeep Sardesai, Mrinal Pandey, Zafar Agha of Kaumi Awaz, Mrinal Pande of National Herald, Paresh Nath, Anant Nath and Vinod K. Jose editors of Caravan Magazine, for spreading fake news and for provoking violence by tweeting that the police had fired at a protester causing his death.

The FIR registered at Gautambudh Nagar police station, Noida has invoked section 153-A (Promoting enmity between different groups), 153B (Imputation, assertions prejudicial to national-integration), 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings), 298 (Uttering words to wound religious feelings), 504 (Intentional insult to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 505(2) (public mischief) 124A (sedition), 34 (common intention), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC as well as section 65 of the Information Technology Act.

The FIR states that the actions of the accused put the security of the nation and its people in grave danger and that their tweets were a conspiracy to cause pre-planned violence in the capital. It further states that from their Twitter handles, the accused intentionally posted that the police shot at one protestor leading to his death to create communal disharmony. It is also alleged that their tweets provoked protesters which led them to the red Fort, unfurling religious flags where the Indian flag was hoisted. The FIR also states that the tweets were shared widely on social media creating anti-government sentiments among people.

The 24-year-old Navneet Singh’s post mortem reportedly shows that he died due to impact on his skull.

Rajdeep Sardesai, Consulting Editor with India Today, has been taken off air for two weeks and a month’s salary deducted by the channel for his tweet which he deleted later. He subsequently tweeted a video saying, “While the farm protesters claim that the deceased Navneet Singh was shot at by Delhi Police while on a tractor, this video clearly shows that the tractor overturned while trying to break the police barricades. The farm protesters allegations don’t stand. Post mortem awaited.”

While the farm protestors claim that the deceased Navneet Singh was shot at by Delhi police while on a tractor, this video clearly shows that the tractor overturned while trying to break the police barricades. The farm protestors allegations don’t stand. Post mortem awaited.? pic.twitter.com/JnuU05psgR

— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) January 26, 2021

His tweet continued, “The police have shown great restraint despite grave provocation by the farm protesters in ITO/Red Fort area: they fired tear gas, no evidence of bullets fired although farm protestors claimed otherwise. Amidst claims and counter claims, the police action needs to be commended”.

The farmers tractor rally on Republic Day went awry as external elements infiltrated the rally and indulged in lawlessness and as police attacked protesters with lathis and tear gas shells.

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The Delhi High Court on September 19, 2020 restrained an individual from mass communicating defamatory content against the TV Today Network Limited of the India Today Group or posting derogatory comments against any of its anchors or office-bearers.

The media conglomerate had lodged a formal complaint against entrepreneur Anurag Srivastav for alleging via three tweets on Twitter that Rhea Chakraborty allegedly gave Rs. 8 crores to news anchor Rajdeep Sardesai and the company for her interview. The complainant demanded a permanent and mandatory injunction against Srivastav whose tweets, although taken down, were still available by Google search engine.

“This Court finds that the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case in its favour and in case no ad-interim injunction is granted, the plaintiff would suffer an irreparable loss. The balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiff,” said Justice Mukta Gupta.

Moreover, Srivastav was barred from directly or indirectly publishing, sending or posting any tweet or information relating to the company’s personnel after the Court noted that one of his tweets compared the company’s news anchor to a person facing extradition proceedings.

Social media platform Twitter was directed to suspend or block the defendant’s twitter handles and to file the basic subscription information of the ‘@theanuragkts’ and ‘@theanuragoffice’ accounts holder in the Court. Search engine Google was asked to provide a web form to the company to apply for deletion of search results relating to the tweets.

In September, the Court had remarked that it is expected of users to display sobriety and the courtesy to those towards whom the comments are directed because social media platforms are accessed by a large number of persons of various ages.

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In this interview senior journalist, Rajdeep Sardesai shares his thoughts on how to combat hate through Social media and whether our current state of affairs are in alignment with the democratic notion that India stands for.

First published on https://cjp.org.in/

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The complaint was filed by a representative of a Hindu observatory group.

Reacting to the development, Sardesai told the media,  “Nandini provides an important perspective into a very complex issue of Maoist conflict in India. She’s an authority on the subject and her book The Burning Forest has extensively dealt with the Maoist conflict in Chhattisgarh. On the show, we also had a minister and a former DG of CRPF. It’s a shame that now think they can decide who we invite on shows!”

Sardesai later tweeted, “Now the RW (right-wing) loonies will decide who to invite on shows! Wow! Hate-mongers ok, scholars not!

26 CRPF soldiers had died in a Maoist attack on Monday. The story had dominated the editorial agenda of every channel. Sardesai too had led his prime time show on India Today with this story. His guests had included Nandini Sundar, Dilip Trivedi and Hansraj Ahir, MoS (Home) in the Narendra Modi government.

Sundar has written several critically-acclaimed books on the Naxal conflict in India. Her publishers also include the prestigious Oxford University Press.

On the show, among other things, Sundar, had said, “The govt doesn’t seem to get it that this is not the way to conduct war against your own people… If govt can have talks with Naga people,why can’t it have dialogue with Maoists.”

The Chhattsgarh Police, which reports to the state’s BJP government, had named Sundar in an FIR last November in connection with the murder of Shamnath Baghel, a tribal villager from the Adivasi-dominated Bastar region. The developed had caused huge uproar with activists slamming the government for curbing the freedom of expression of those who stood for vulnerable and marginalised in India.

Vivek Agnihotri, a filmmaker and a known sypathiser of the right-wing politics in India, tweeted what appeared to be the content of the complaint against the veteran journalist.

In his tweet, Agnihotri, wrote, “Legal complaint filed against @sardesairajdeep for inviting urban naxal, Nandini Sunder. This is how we finish Urban Naxals, one by one.”

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I was hugely tempted to tell the gentleman that we had just done a programme with the widows of the 1984 riots, but chose to avoid a confrontation. Arguments like this are often self-defeating, and it is perhaps best to sit in a corner and sip one’s Bacardi-coke. The fact is that we live in an increasingly intolerant society, one in which any form of dissent or attempt to question the conventional wisdom only earns the label "anti-national" or a questioning of one’s faith. (I’ve always believed that those who question patriotism should do a compulsory one year service at Siachen, but then that’s another matter).
 

Unfortunately, the media too is trapped in this growing polarisation of the mind. The prevailing philosophy of the ruling elite (and this is perhaps as much true of the Congress as it is of the BJP) is to believe that journalists must be either seduced or else intimidated. Those who are seduced are promised Rajya Sabha seats, appointed on various committees, or else guaranteed Padma awards. Those who are intimidated are threatened with criminal suits, ostracised from social events and denied access to information.
 

The polarisation of the media makes Communalism Combat important as an outlet for some form of protest in the prevailing atmosphere of "manufactured consensus". In a sense, it forces people to look into a mirror at a time when there is a concerted attempt to keep the images of hate and violence as blurred as possible. There is a need to be reminded that the tragedy of the child who lost her mother in the Godhra train burning is no different to that of the infant who lost her family in Naroda Patia; that the terrorist who maims a girl at a bus stop in Rajouri is no more heinous than the one who wields a trishul to torment another community. The fact is that in a society which attempts to rationalise violence as some kind of action-reaction process, there is a need to condemn ALL kinds of violence as unacceptable in a civilised society.
 

This, of course, is easier said than done. As one has seen in Gujarat, in Mumbai, in Jammu & Kashmir, it isn’t easy defying the establishment. In all instances, there is a sustained attempt to shoot the messenger. In Kashmir, it has taken the more dramatic form of journalists being intimidated at gun-point. In Gujarat, the television camera became the "enemy", with camerapersons being routinely assaulted. Since Mumbai happened in the pre-television era, there wasn’t the prying camera to attack, but there are enough instances of reporters who found themselves being threatened by the political bosses of Mumbai.
 

But whatever be the form of intimidation, there is an urgent need to carve out some space (call it a sanctuary if you will) where mediapersons can express themselves with some sense of freedom from fear. Hopefully, Communalism Combat will provide that ultimate sanctuary for those who still swear by the Indian Constitution.
 

This article was posted on Sardesai’s blog on February 12, 2010.

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2003, Anniversary Issue (10th), Year 10, No. 90-91, Media 2
 

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