A Delhi court, on Saturday, September 23, ordered the police to release the electronic devices that were seized from the editors of The Wire, during searches conducted at their homes and offices in October last year. The searches were conducted following a case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Malviya alleging that his reputation was tarnished by the news portal.
According to a LiveLaw report, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Siddhartha Malik of Tis Hazari Courts observed that the devices have been with the Investigating Officer (IO) for a very long time, the court ordered to release the devices stating that the mirror images of the devices are available with the FSL for further investigation. “The argument of the IO that the devices might again be required for some subsequent investigation is speculative in nature based on the presumption of coming to light some new fact at a later stage, which may or may not happen. The devices of the accused persons cannot be kept indefinitely by the IO, only on the speculation of an uncertain future event/discovery,” the court had said. The court was hearing a petition filed by the editors of The Wire seeking release of their devices.
The court has now directed the petitioners to submit an affidavit before the IO asking to keep their devices under their custody, and the IO has been asked to file a compliance report on October 21.
BJP’s Amit Malviya had filed a complaint against The Wire stating that they “tarnished his reputation” through a series of stories that has now been retracted. The stories had begun with the claim that Meta had given Amit Malviya special privileges under its opaque XCheck programme, to have posts taken down as per his wish. Meta, which owns WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, had denied the allegation. Following this, The Wire retracted the stories and conducted an internal review of its coverage of Meta.
However, Delhi police registered an FIR under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery with the purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for harming reputation), 471 (using forged document), 500 (defamation), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).