HC refuses to quash FIR against Dainik Bhaskar

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court refused to stay all further proceedings pursuant to the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against the Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar for tweeting a fake video claiming that migrant workers from Bihar were being killed in Tamil Nadu

Hearing the petition filed by Dainik Bhaskar to quash the FIR, Justice G Chandrasekharan declined to issue any kind of interim order until June first week and directed the Tiruppur North police to respond to the petition within June first week.

Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi newspaper uploaded a video on March 2 on Twitter saying that ‘Taliban in Tamil Nadu are punishing Bihari labourers for speaking in Hindi.’ The FIR was registered based on a complaint lodged by the Special Sub-Inspector of Police, Kannagi.

During the hearing, senior counsel B Kumar representing the media organisation contended that one of the newspaper’s correspondents had received the video on WhatsApp and hence the media organisation had tweeted it on its Twitter handle. They said the organisation deleted the tweet the same day when the Tamil Nadu DGP C Sylendra Babu declared the video was fake.

However, the court questioned how a responsible media organisation tweeted an unverified video and asked how it would answer for the law and order problem that would have been caused when the video was in the public domain.