Amit Malviya vs. The Wire: Delhi court orders Police to release electronic devices seized from The Wire's editors, journalists

A Delhi court on Saturday ordered the release of electronic devices belonging to the editors of The Wire which were seized by the Delhi Police in October 2022 in relation to its probe in the first information report (FIR) lodged by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Malviya. .The Wire’s founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu as well its editors Sidharth Bhatia, Jahnavi Sen and product-cum-business head Mithun Kidambi had approached the Court seeking release of their devices..The Court noted that the devices have been in possession of the police for a long time and there was no reasonable ground to hold on to the devices now.“From the record it is clear that the devices seized during investigation have been in custody of the IO for a very long time. The devices have already been examined by the FSL and their mirror images is available with FSL for the purpose of any subsequent investigation,” the Court said.It rejected the argument of the Investigating Officer (IO) that the devices might be required again for some subsequent investigation.Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Siddhartha Malik of Tis Hazari Courts said that the argument is speculative in nature based on the presumption that some new fact might emerge at a later stage, which may or may not happen.“The devices of the accused persons cannot be kept indefinitely by the IO only on the speculation of an uncertain future event/discovery,” the Court said. The judge therefore ordered the police to release the devices within 15 days..The Court also listed the case for filing of compliance report on October 21. .Delhi Police had registered the FIR against The Wire and its editors on a complaint filed by BJP IT cell Chief Amit Malviya.Malviya had filed the complaint over The Wire’s stories claiming that he enjoyed a special privilege on Meta platforms through which he could get any story taken down if he believed it was against the BJP's interests.The stories were later retracted.The news website in turn had filed a complaint against its former consultant Devesh Kumar. The Wire claimed that Kumar “fabricated and supplied documents, e-mails and other material such as videos with a view to damage its reputation. He has done so either on his own or at the behest of other unknown persons"...Advocate Ashwath Sitaraman appeared for the The Wire’s journalists/editors