Journalist Abhisar Sharma gets protection from arrest in FIR for comments about Assam CM

The Supreme Court on Thursday granted journalist Abhisar Sharma interim protection from arrest for four weeks in the case against him for accusing Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of engaging in communal politics, Bar and Bench reported.

Refusing to entertain Sharma’s plea to quash the first information report against him, a bench of Justices MM Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh directed the journalist to approach the Gauahati High Court.

Sharma was booked on August 21 under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to acts endangering national unity and sovereignty, promoting enmity between groups and making assertions prejudicial to national integration.

The case was filed based on a complaint by Alok Baruah, a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Baruah alleged that Sharma ridiculed and denigrated the Union government and the Assam government, and thus endangered national sovereignty. He claimed that the journalist “ridiculed the principle of Ram Rajya [or the reign of the Hindu deity Ram], and openly accused the chief minister of Assam of communal politics”.

Sharma had described the case as “completely baseless”.

In his petition before the Supreme Court, the journalist said that the case misuses provisions of the Bharatiya...

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