SC refuses to quash FIR but gives YouTuber relief

New Delhi: Supreme Court on Thursday granted four-week protection from arrest to journalist and YouTuber Abhisar Sharma but did not accept his plea for quashing the FIR registered by Assam police over his video accusing state govt of ' communal politics ' and questioning its allotment of 3,000 acre of tribal land to a private entity. A bench of Justices Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh asked Sharma to move Delhi HC for dismissal of FIR.

It, however, agreed to hear his plea challenging constitutional validity of Section 152 of BNS which is akin to sedition provision but turned down repeated pleas to hear his petition against the FIR. The bench was initially not inclined to entertain the plea, leading senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the journalist to argue that another bench of SC had agreed to hear a similar plea filed by another journalist - a reference to a petition filed by Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar's petition which was entertained by the court.

Sibal insisted that SC must maintain uniformity and Sharma's plea be also heard. The bench however refused the plea and granted interim protection to Sharma to enable him to approach HC. Sharma told the court that the alleged offensive video posted by him stems from a recent Guwahati HC proceeding with respect to such allotment.

Refuting the allegation of ridiculing and denigrating the govts, the petitioner said his statements are not fabricated assertions but grounded in verifiable facts which were supported by original video clips of political speeches made by the Assam CM available in the public domain.