The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted interim relief from arrest to journalist Arnab Goswami and stayed both the FIRs against him for alleged communal coverage of Palghar lynching case and an incident of migrants gathering outside the Bandra station.
A division bench of Ujjal Bhuyan and Riyaz Chagla said prima facie no case had been made out against Mr. Goswami. It said no coercive steps should be taken against him.
The court was hearing a criminal petition filed by Mr. Goswami seeking to quash the FIRs against him registered at the NM Joshi Marg and the Pydhonie police stations.
Earlier on, senior counsel Harish Salve for Mr. Goswami submitted that multiple FIRs had been filed across the country for the same incidents and as per a Supreme Court order multiple FIRs in different States for the same incident were not sustainable and hence the FIR filed against Mr. Goswami should be quashed.
Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the State of Maharashtra, submitted that the allegations made against Mr. Goswami in the FIRs were sensitive in nature and hence he should be asked to attend the police station to enable them to complete their investigation.
The Republic TV chief has been booked under sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language) 153 B (imputations, assertions, prejudicial to national integration) 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting it's religion or religious beliefs), 298 (uttering words etc with deliberate intend to wound the religious feelings of any person, 500 (punishment for defamation), 504 (hoever intentionally insults, and thereby gives provocation to any person, intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation will cause him to break the public peace), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) 120 B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) and 117 (abetting commission of offence by the public generally or by any number or class of persons exceeding ten) of the Indian Penal Code.