The apex court was surprised to learn that the Army had invited the EGI team to make an "objective assessment" of the situation in Manipur.
Published Sep 11, 2023 | 6:58 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 11, 2023 | 6:59 PM
The Supreme Court of India. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Supreme Court on Monday, 11 September, extended till 15 September its interim order protecting from arrest the president and the members of the fact-finding team of the Editors Guild of India (EGI) with respect to two FIRs registered against them by the Manipur police.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra extended its order restraining Manipur police from arresting the EGI president and the members of the fact-finding team till Friday — the next date of the hearing.
The apex court on 6 September passed an interim order protecting the EGI president and the members of the fact-finding team from any coercive action till Monday.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Manipur government, urged the bench to ask the EGI to approach the Manipur High Court. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Shyam Divan, appearing for the EGI, opposed it.
Chief Justice DY Chandrachud asked Mehta whether the Manipur government would agree to transfer the case to the Delhi High Court as a one-off measure.
“We will not quash the FIRs here… but we will examine whether such a plea could be heard by the Delhi High Court,” he said.
Objecting to the transfer of the case to the Delhi High Court, Mehta said that the EGI was attempting to make it a “national political issue”, and asked why it wanted the matter to be transferred to the Delhi High Court and not to any of the high courts of the states neighbouring Manipur.
He also pointed out that the Manipur High Court was functioning and allowed for virtual hearing of cases.
Telling the court that the EGI’s fact-finding team went to Manipur on the invitation of the Army to make an “objective assessment” of the “unethical and ex-parte reporting” by the vernacular media, Sibal said, “We did not volunteer to go there. It was the Army that requested us. We got a letter from the Army.”
Surprised by the statement, Chief Justice Chandrachud wondered why the Army wanted the EGI to go to Manipur.
In the course of the hearing, Mehta told the court to extend the protection from arrest for some more time to the members of the EGI’s fact-finding team, but urged the bench to ask the EGI to approach the Manipur High Court, as had been done in other cases.
Opposing the submission by the solicitor general, Kapil Sibal and Shyam Divan told the bench that the matter be heard by the Supreme Court as the FIRs had been lodged on the basis of a fact-finding report.
