[Breaking] Allahabad High Court refuses to quash FIR against Gareeb Nawaz Mosque Committee Secretary in relation to The Wire interview

The Allahabad High Court has rejected the plea by the Masjid Committee Secretary of the Gareeb Nawaz Mosque, Mohammad Anees and a local resident of Barabanki, Mohd. Naeem to quash the First Information Report (FIR) registered against them by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) police in relation to a video report done by news portal, The Wire regarding the demolition of the Masjid. .A Division Bench of Justices Ramesh Sinha and Narendra Kumar Johari said that it is open for the petitioners to move an anticipatory bail in the matter and it cannot quash the proceedings at the moment.On the previous hearing, the Court had given two days time to the State and asked them to get instructions about the number of FIRs against the petitioners.Counsel for the petitioners, Advocate Tripathi submitted during the hearing,"All the charges under 153A (sedition) and other connected charges are unsustainable."Tripathi pointed out that one of the petitioners is the Secretary of the Masjid committee and the second petitioner used to go to mosque for offering prayer.It was argued that the dispute with respect to mosque in question was already a subject matter of a contempt petition in which the Court had already issued notice to the SDM, Divyanshu Pandey and State authorities.Further, it was submitted that the FIR filed by the Uttar Pradesh Police was baseless."He submits that the petitioner has only placed his case, which was in the aforesaid writ petition before the 'Wire' Newspaper and immediately thereafter, the impugned FIR has been lodged against him," the Court noted in its order..The UP Police had registered the FIR on a complaint filed by one Mahendra Singh alleging that the report by the news portal was based on baseless and untrue facts.The accused were booked for offences under Sections 153 (provocation to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups), 120-B (conspiracy) and 501 (printing defamatory material) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)..[Gareeb Nawaz Mosque demolition] Allahabad High Court issues contempt of court notice to SHO, Barabanki for alleged violation of High Court order.In the plea filed through advocate Saud Rais, it was submitted that the allegations in the FIR is baseless and the life of petitioners is under threat because the police can arrest them anytime.It was submitted that the FIR impinges upon freedom of speech and expression guaranteed to every citizen under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.In this regard, reliance was place on Supreme Court's decision in Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras, in which the top court held that there can be no doubt that freedom speech includes freedom of propagation of ideas, and that freedom is ensured by "freedom of circulation".[Breaking] Gareeb Nawaz Masjid Committee Secretary moves Allahabad High Court to quash FIR in relation to report by The Wire on masjid demolition.Advocates Saud Rais and Praveen Kumar Tripathi appeared for the petitioners and Nand Prabha Shukla, AGA represented the State.