SIT probe against Ashoka University professor should be limited to two FIRs, says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stated that the Special Investigation Team’s probe into comments made by Ashoka University Associate Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad about the press briefings on Operation Sindoor should be limited to the two first information reports filed against him, reported Live Law.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta said that the investigation report should be produced before the top court before being filed in the jurisdictional court.

It added that the interim protection granted to the professor would continue till further orders.

Two cases have been filed against Mahmudabad, who heads the political science department at Ashoka University, for his comments about the media briefings on the Indian military operation against terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir initiated in the wake of the April 22 Pahalgam attack.

One of the cases was filed based on a complaint by Yogesh Jatheri, general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Yuva Morcha unit in Haryana.

The second case was filed on the basis of a complaint by Renu Bhatia, the chairperson of the Haryana State Women’s Commission.

Mahmudabad was arrested on May 18 and was sent to judicial custody on May 20.

On May 21, the court granted interim bail to the professor. However, it declined to halt the investigation against him. It also instructed the Haryana director general...

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