IMPORTANT POINTS
(1) There is need for law to protect journalistic freedom within ambit of Article 19(1)(a) of Constitution.
(2) Investigation of an FIR should be allowed to take place in accordance with law without this Court deploying its jurisdiction under Article 32 to obstruct due process of law.

JUDGMENT

The Court convened through video conferencing.

1. We have heard Mr Mukul Rohatgi with Mr Siddharth Bhatnagar, senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner.

2. Mr Kapil Sibal, senior counsel appears on behalf of the State of Maharashtra. Mr Vivek Tankha, senior counsel appears on behalf of the State of Chhattisgarh. Dr Manish Singhvi, senior counsel appears on behalf of the State of Rajasthan. They have opposed the petition.

3. Leave to amend, on the oral request of senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, for the purpose of:

(i) Impleading the complainants at whose behest, the First Information Reports (FIRs)or, as the case may be, the criminal complaints have been filed;

(ii) Setting up an alternate prayer for the consolidation of all the FIRs or, as the case may be, criminal complaints for being investigated at one and the same place; and

(iii) Filing copies of the FIRs and the criminal complaints.

4. Issue notice, returnable in eight weeks. Notice shall also issue to the respondents permitted to be impleaded by amendment.

5. The petitioner is the Editor-in-Chief of Republic TV. The principal submission on the basis of which these proceedings have been instituted is that multiple FIRs and criminal complaints have been lodged against the petitioner on the basis of the same cause of action, emanating from a programme which was telecast on Republic TV on 21 April 2020. FIRs and criminal complaints have been lodged in the States of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Jharkhand as well as in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir. The jurisdiction under Article 32 has been invoked in view of the filing of FIRs and complaints in multiple jurisdictions, straddling several States.

6. Mr Rohatgi submitted that the statements which have been attributed to the petitioner are based on a small part of the overall programme and that if the programme is viewed in its entirety, no offence has been made out under Sections 153, 153A, 153B, 295A, 298, 500, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code 1860. The petitioner has asserted his rights under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, while urging that the programme presented an analysis of an incident of mob lynching which took place at Palghar on 16 April 2020 in the course of which two persons were killed in the presence of personnel belonging to the police and the forest department. These submissions have been buttressed by relying upon the decisions of this Court in T T Antony v State of Kerala ((2001) 6 SCC 181), Subramanian Swamy v Union of India ((2016) 7 SCC 221)and Satinder Singh Bhasin v Government of NCT of Delhi & Ors ((2019) 10 SCC 800).

7. Opposing these submissions, Mr Kapil Sibal, learned senior counsel, submitted that the offending part of the telecast relates to an excerpt which commences at 10.51 pm. Placing reliance on the excerpt, Mr Sibal urged that this amounts not only to an abuse of the freedom of speech and expression, but implicates the offences which are complained of. Mr Sibal submitted that having regard to the settled principle of law, this Court ought not to restrain a proper investigation being conducted. At the same time, it was urged that should the petitioner move a prayer for the clubbing of the FIRs which have been filed in diverse jurisdictions, there would be no objection to the Court passing an order for a common investigation in the interests of justice.

8. Dr Manish Singhvi and Mr Vivek Tankha supported the submissions which were urged on behalf of the State of Maharashtra by Mr Kapil Sibal.

9. The Court was apprised by Mr Mukul Rohatgi, learned senior counsel, on seeking instructions, that the petitioner would have no objection if the FIR which has been lodged at Nagpur is transferred for the purpose of investigation to the N M Joshi Marg Police Station, Mumbai, where the petitioner has lodged an FIR on 23 April 2020. The FIR by the petitioner is in relation to an incident which took place at midni