The Supreme Court on Wednesday made absolute the interim protection from coercive action granted to journalist Abhishek Upadhyay in a road rage case and any subsequent first information reports, The Hindu reported.
The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi also quashed a notice issued by the Uttar Pradesh Police to social media platform X that sought data pertaining to Upadhyay’s account, Live Law reported. The notice had sought data covering a three-month period before the alleged road rage incident.
Upadhyay has claimed that the road rage case was filed to harass him for his reports on the alleged embezzlement of donations at the Ram temple in Ayodhya. He was among the first to report on the alleged corruption.
In a petition against the first information report against him, Upadhyay had filed an application challenging the police’s notice to X.
During a hearing on September 7, the counsel for Upadhyay stated that the police’s notice had sought information about the account dating back to June 1, even though the FIR in the road rage case had been filed on August 18.
The lawyer argued that the police were trying to identify Upadhyay’s journalistic sources.
The attorney general representing the Uttar Pradesh government said that there was a medico-legal case report showing injuries that warranted investigation.
Bagchi had at the time asked why a person’s “digital footsteps” were...