Calcutta High Court quashes hate speech case against Zee News' ex-editor Sudhir Chaudhary

The Calcutta High Court last week quashed a 2016 case of hate speech against ormer Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary, the channel's reporter Pooja Mehta and cameraperson Tanmay Mukherjee [Pooja Mehta vs State of West Bengal]..The trio had been booked in 2016 for allegedly promoting enmity between two communities for their coverage of the Dhulagarh RiotsIn an order passed on August 3, single-judge Justice Bibhas Ranjan De noted that the prosecution failed to adduce any material on record, which could attract any offence under Section 153A (promoting communal enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmon) of the Indian Penal Code. "On careful perusal of the case diary, I find that Investigating Officer, within the span of 51 days, only succeeded to record statement of two persons and both the statements, in my opinion, are replica to each other and that too none of those two witnesses could speak a single word intending to promote enmity between two different communities," the Court said.The Court further pointed out that the First Information Report (FIR) indicated that no untoward incident took place after December 16, 2016, when Chaudhary and his team visited the spot. "In the premises set forth, further proceeding with this case would result in an abuse of process of court and will not serve the ends of justice. No option is left to this court but to quash the proceedings," the judge observed..The order was passed on a plea filed by the trio seeking to quash the FIR lodged against them on December 17, 2016 on a complaint filed by one Chiranjeet Das, who watched the coverage of Zee News.In his complaint, Das alleged that Zee News in their special coverage on December 16 had claimed that the 'disturbance' that took place in Dhulagarh on December 13 and 14, was basically a communal tension. He alleged that the news telecast led to actual communal tension in the area.The journalists argued that the incident in Dhulagarh was reported by several media houses but only Zee News was isolated in the FIR lodged by Das.The State, on the other hand, countered the contention stating that Zee News usually patronizes particular political party.The Court, however, quashed the proceedings for want of evidence..Advocates Sourav Chatterjee, Supriya Ranjan Saha and Subhrangsu Mitra appeared for the Petitioners.Advocates Binay Panda and Subham Bhakat represented the State..[Read Order]