Don’t book people for seeking help on social media: Supreme Court to cops | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Warning state governments against booking people for making distressed social media posts on scarcity of oxygen, essential medicines and beds for Covid-19 patients, the Supreme Court on Friday said state police and DGPs would be hauled for contempt of court for any clampdown on citizens for airing grievances on deficiencies in healthcare during the pandemic.
Without referring to scores of cases lodged against people in Maharashtra, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for making such posts, a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, L N Rao and S R Bhat strongly objected to police action against social media posts by hapless individuals seeking help from every quarter to get a bed, oxygen cylinder or Remdesivir injection for their precariously placed Covid-positive relatives or friends.

“If a citizen ventilates his grievances through social media posts, there is no presumption that it is not genuine. There cannot be and should not be any clampdown on free speech. If anyone is booked for airing their grievance about non-supply of oxygen, medicines or availability of hospital bed, it will amount to a clampdown and we will treat it as contempt of this court,” Justice Chandrachud said while conveying strong disapproval of the actions taken by police in states in the name of health emergency under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, provisions of IPC, 1860, and the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
“Let a loud message go out to the states and their DGPs. We will brook no violation of the right to free speech of a citizen when the country is going through a humanitarian crisis during a health emergency. We will haul them for contempt,” the bench said and cited Justice Chandrachud’s judgment in the nine-judge bench verdict on Aadhaar validity in K Puttaswamy case in which he had cited the importance of free flow of information in combating a national crisis.
In the Puttaswamy judgment, Justice Chandrachud, quoting economist Amartya Sen, had said that clampdown on free flow of information during the Bengal famine had led to an information blackout on availability and stock of foodgrain that resulted in a large number of deaths. On the other hand, during the famine in the 1970s in Maharashtra, free flow of information saved a lot many lives.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta said he fully agreed with the bench and a person in distress highlighting his grievances on social media should not face any action from police. But the authorities must stop rumour mongering and spreading false information that could trigger panic in society, he added.
The bench said, “Let there be free flow of information. Grievances aired through social media posts could actually help the government and local administration to attend to common deficiencies in the healthcare sector and attend to them speedily.”

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