The Supreme Court of India has rejected the plea of YouTuber Manish Kashyap to club the First Information Reports (FIRs) filed against him for spreading fake news about Bihari migrant labourers in Tamil Nadu. The bench, consisting of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha, and Justice JB Pardiwala, also declined to dismiss his plea seeking to quash his detention under the National Security Act (NSA). However, Kashyap has been granted permission to appeal to the concerned High Court to seek these reliefs.
According to LiveLaw, Chandrachud made a statement during the hearing, saying, “You have a stable state, the state of Tamil Nadu. You circulate anything to create disquiet…we can’t be lending our ears to this.” Meanwhile, Maninder Singh, who was representing Kashyap, stated that the YouTuber had made the videos based on news reports and that if Kashyap was arrested and detained using the NSA, so should the journalists who wrote these news stories.
During the previous hearing, the Supreme Court bench had asked why there was a need for invoking the NSA for these allegations. Kapil Sibal, who was representing Tamil Nadu, said that Kashyap had over six lakh followers on social media and the videos he posted caused “widespread panic.”
Kashyap, a Bihar-based YouTuber, was remanded to 14 days in judicial custody on March 28. He was brought to Tamil Nadu on March 28 after being booked by the Madurai Cybercrime Wing for spreading misinformation. He had surrendered at the Jagdishpur police station in Bihar’s West Champaran on March 18. On April 6, booked under the NSA..
In the first week of March, several videos of north Indians allegedly being attacked in Tamil Nadu were doing the rounds on social media. The Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) Sylendra Babu issued a statement saying that the videos were fake and did not feature migrant labourers being attacked by Tamil people in the state.