New Delhi, The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Tuesday a plea of a journalist, who flagged alleged irregularities in the handling of donations at Ayodhya’s Ram temple, challenging an FIR lodged against him by the Ghaziabad police in an alleged road rage case.
The fresh plea was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana which agreed to list for hearing the plea of journalist Abhishek Upadhyay on Tuesday. I request that it may be listed today or tomorrow, whatever is possible,” his counsel said. The CJI then agreed to list the matter for hearing on Tuesday subject to curing of defects in the petition.
“Multiple FIRs have been filed against him and now an FIR under the stringent provisions of the SC/ST Act has also been filed. I have filed my writ petition. In the plea, he has contended that the FIR copy has not been supplied to him and that the police were forcing nearby shopkeepers to delete the CCTV visuals of the relevant time. Upadhyay sought quashing of the FIR, or in the alternative, its investigation be transferred to an independent agency other than the Uttar Pradesh Police. He alleged that the police team had come to his residence possibly to arrest him and he requested Ghaziabad police to release CCTV footage of the alleged incident.
The police raided his house on August 20. Yesterday also, the police came at 5 o’clock. The alleged incident took place on August 18 near Shipra Mall in Ghaziabad, when a motorcyclist allegedly touched his car, according to Upadhyay. He said the man subsequently called the police emergency helpline 112 and an FIR was registered later.
