Delhi Court Rejects Clean Chit To Manish Sisodia For Spreading Fake News On Jamia Violence

A Delhi court on Monday (24 February) directed the Delhi Police Commissioner to submit a fresh report on the complaint filed against Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia for posting "misleading" tweets.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vishal Pahuja issued the order after refusing to accept the Action Taken Report (ATR) filed by the Delhi Police in the matter on Monday. The commissioner has to file the report by 17 March.

The police, in its report, gave clean chit to Sisodia for posting alleged "misleading" tweets during 15 December Jamia violence, observing that he only posted his "opinion" and tweets were mere allegations against the police.

"From the perusal of the complaint, it is revealed that the tweets are mere allegations against police and no offence is made out. Manish Sisodia only tweeted his opinion on video clip which was running on news channels and no cognizable offence is made out from content of tweets," the police submitted in the Action Taken Report (ATR).

The court had earlier this month directed the police to file an Action Taken Report (ATR) on a complaint filed by an advocate seeking registration of FIR against Sisodia for posting "misleading" tweets.

Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, in his complaint, quoted Sisodia''s tweet, which read: "BJP is setting fire in Delhi due to the fear of defeat in elections. AAP is against any kind of violence. See by yourself in this video, how fire is being set under the protection of the police."

Sisodia's tweet came after several buses were set afire when protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act turned violent on December 15 near Delhi's Jamia Nagar.

The complainant accused Sisodia of depicting an "irresponsible and careless approach by spreading false information to incite violence and promote disharmony".

"The tweets are being shared by many users, causing further doubts, confusion and unrest in the minds of people," he claimed in the complaint.

In lieu of this, he requested the court to issue a direction to the Delhi Police to register FIR against Sisodia under Sections 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 504 (intent to provoke breach of peace) and 505 (conducting public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act.