Newdelhi: The Supreme Court confirmed its earlier order protecting journalist Abhishek Upadhyay from coercive action in connection with a road rage case registered in Ghaziabad. Upadhyay had previously reported on alleged irregularities concerning the handling of donations at Ayodhya's Ram temple.
Along with extending protection, the court quashed an August 22 notice issued by the Ghaziabad Police to the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The notice had demanded information and digital details regarding the journalist, and the ruling now permits Upadhyay to challenge the underlying First Information Report before the jurisdictional high court.
A bench consisting of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed that a copy of the FIR had been supplied to Upadhyay, prompting the court to make its prior interim protection order absolute.
The bench reviewed an affidavit submitted by the Ghaziabad Commissioner of Police, which stated that the notice directed to X's nodal officer was intended solely to locate Upadhyay because he was untraceable following the registration of the FIR in August. However, senior counsel Pradeep Rai, representing Upadhyay, pointed out that the police had requested information from X extending as far back as June, despite the FIR being filed in August.
Expressing skepticism over the breadth of the request, the bench remarked that demanding data from three months prior amounted to an overkill. The court emphasized that law enforcement authorities lacked the authority to access confidential or personal information belonging to Upadhyay for any duration predating the alleged offense, leading to the formal quashing of the August 22 notice.
Additionally, the bench granted Upadhyay permission to seek formal, mandatory guidelines concerning how police gather personal data during active criminal investigations.
Back on August 25, the Supreme Court had initially shielded Upadhyay from coercive measures and ordered that he receive the FIR registered at Indirapuram in Ghaziabad. In his legal challenge, Upadhyay argued that authorities withheld the FIR copy and pressured local shopkeepers to erase surveillance footage from the relevant timeline, maintaining that the legal action stemmed from his investigative reporting on alleged corruption in Uttar Pradesh. With the latest ruling, the court has solidified his protection, invalidated the digital data demand sent to X, and cleared the path for him to contest the FIR in the appropriate high court.