Supreme Court Grants Protection To Journalist Booked For Tweet On Caste Bias In UP

The Supreme Court on Thursday granted interim relief to journalist Mamta Tripathi booked in a series of criminal cases for their posts on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) alleging caste discrimination in the appointments of officers in key posts of the Uttar Pradesh government.

The bench, comprising Justices BR Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra, and KV Viswanathan, stated that coercive action should be taken against the journalist. The Supreme Court sought the Yogi Adityanath-led government’s response to Tripathi’s plea to quash the four First Information Reports (FIRs) registered against her.

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The decision comes after Lucknow-based freelance journalist Abhishek Upadhyay recently moved the top court for quashing an FIR filed against him over the same story. On October 4, the court observed that criminal cases cannot be slapped against journalists for their stories perceived as criticism of the government. Upadhyay was granted interim protection by the court.

The court granted interim protection to Tripathi in relation to six articles written by her.

In his tweet, Upadhyay referred to the rise in the prominence of the Rajput community (Thakur or Singh Raj) under the tenure of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the state. He listed 40 top state government officials who allegedly belonged to the Thakur community and questioned if the appointments were being made based on caste.

Soon after, an FIR was lodged against Upadhyay and Tripathi, who had posted the same tweet, under Sections 353(2) [hate speech], 197(1)(C) [statement against national integration], 302 (hurting religious feelings), 356 (defamation) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) and Section 66 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008.

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The complaint was filed by another freelance journalist called Pankaj Kumar. Kumar referred to Yogi as “Maharaj,” who was “like an incarnation of God,” with no other CM matching his popularity.

The complaint also accused the two journalists of “entering into a conspiracy and criminal mentality with intention to tarnish the image of the chief minister” by posting “false, baseless, and misleading information.”