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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Gujarat HC quashes sedition cases against TOI

Gujarat HC quashes sedition cases against TOI

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published Published on Apr 19, 2012   modified Modified on Apr 19, 2012
-The Times of India

The Gujarat high court on Wednesday quashed the charges of sedition that former Ahmedabad police commissioner O P Mathur had filed against The Times of India's Ahmedabad edition in June 2008. The court quashed all five FIRs, which accused the resident editor and the correspondent of inciting people against the police.

The FIRs had been filed after TOI ran a series of investigative reports on Mathur's suspected underworld links and asked if Ahmedabad was safe in the hands of the new city police chief. The reports clearly said Mathur had been made police commissioner as a reward for derailing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter probe, by making crucial evidence disappear. TOI ran opinion polls which went against Mathur.

About two months after his appointment, terrorists struck in Ahmedabad with 20 serial blasts, killing 57 people. In its order, the court dubbed the eight TOI reports as "a strong comment on wisdom of government in appointing Mathur on the basis of past incidents as found in CBI records".

While dictating the order, Justice Harsha Devani observed that the government "cannot be identified with an individual". Discussing at length Supreme Court decisions, she held that the TOI articles definitely do not fall under section 124A of the IPC, which deals with sedition.

Rejecting Mathur's claims, the court concluded that the articles were a "strongly worded criticism and comment with intention to improve the condition and not to incite violence or disaffection among people". The order added, "If perused in light of the SC orders and from a view of a reasonable person, the articles do not have an effect of creating hatred or contempt among people towards the government or tendency to subvert the government."

Mathur had dubbed TOI's opinion poll as the ultimate attempt to challenge the establishment. The court said, "Seeking people's views in ameliorating the condition and in cancelling a government's decision of appointing Mathur as Ahmedabad's commissioner of police is without the intention of inciting violence or creating public disorder."

The court also upheld the contention raised by TOI's senior counsel S V Raju that Mathur could have filed for criminal defamation, but definitely not sedition.

The Times of India, 19 April, 2012, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Gujarat-HC-quashes-sedition-cases-against-TOI/articleshow/12723661.cms


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