On Monday, during the second hearing of petition filed by Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Journalist Arnab Goswami in which he has sought quashing of an FIR registered against him
The petition concerns his covering of the Bandra's migrant incident of April in his show.
In his petition filed, the Anchor pleaded that the Court should order the Mumbai Police to not take cognizance of the FIR registered against him.
A new FIR has been filed against Arnab Goswami based on the complaint by Secretary of Raza Educational Welfare Society, Irfan Abubakar Shaikh. He was accused of disturbing communal harmony through his flagship debate show on his News Channel, Republic Bharat where he allegedly communalised the Bandra migrant incident.
When the Government announced Lockdown, the Migrant Workers were puzzled and troubled as to how they shall deal with it. Their stay at their migrant place and movement to their motherland was dealt and arranged accordingly.
Concerning to it, a large gathering of people had assembled in Mumbai's Bandra what it seemed was in hope to return back to their respective places.
On the orher hand, Goswami in his debate show called this incident a 'Conspiracy' and labelled the migrants as 'actors' who were planted by people with 'vested interests'.
This resulted in filing of FIR against the Journalist accusing him of false reporting.
The FIR consists of allegations under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including Section 153 (provocation with the intent to cause riot), Section 153A (promoting enmity between groups) and Section 295A (outraging religious feelings of any class of citizens)
The other Sections invoked against him are Sections 500, 505 (2), 511 and 120 B of the IPC.
In his defense, the Journalist has moved the Supreme Court seeking to quash the FIR and for a blanket direction that no cognizance of any complaint be taken by any Court on any FIR registered by the Police on the same cause of action as in the present writ petition.
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