Supreme Court Grants Bail To Advocate Prashant Umrao In FIR Registered In Tamil Nadu Over Alleged Tweet On Bihari Migrant Workers
The Supreme Court today while making its interim order dated April 6, 2023 absolute, has granted bail to Advocate Prashant Kumar Umrao in what was stated earlier to be multiple FIRs registered against him in different parts of Tamil Nadu for allegedly spreading false information on Twitter about attacks against Bihari migrant workers in Tamil Nadu. The Court was apprised of the fact that only one FIR was registered against him, and the investigation in the matter is complete.
Accordingly, a bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra observed, “The Learned Additional Advocate General for the State states that only one FIR has been registered against the petitioner. In that view of the matter the criminal petition no. 143 of 2023 does not survive and is disposed of. So far it has been fairly stated that investigation is complete and the chargesheet is likely to be filed. In that view of the matter the SLP is being made absolute in terms of the interim order dated April 6, 2023”.
AAG Amit Anand Tiwari appeared for the State.
During the arguments today, AAG apprised the court that there is only one FIR that was registered against Umrao in the matter as opposed to the contention that multiple FIRs were filed against him and are pending.
Tiwari said, “In this case, the investigation is complete milords…the writ petition is premised on the fact that multiple FIRs are filed. Now in the counter affidavit, we have disclosed that only one FIR has been filed. He can avail whatever remedies are available to him, he can challenge this FIR”.
“SLP may be allowed in terms of the interim order”, he submitted further when the Court said that it would then allow the SLP.
It is also to be noted that the Court in its April order while passing the interim order had also modified the anticipatory bail condition which required the petitioner to report before the police station every day for a period of 15 days. The Court directed the petitioner to appear before the police station on Monday at 10.30 am and thereafter as and when required.
For the background, as per Umrao, the alleged tweet in question was only retweeted by him and was initially posted by some media channels. However, he deleted the tweets on coming to know that they were fake. The original tweet targeted Tejashwi Yadav, the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar. The tweet allegedly read that "fifteen people from Bihar had been hanged in a room in Tamil Nadu for speaking Hindi and that 12 of them had sadly died. After that, Tejaswi Yadav shamelessly celebrated birthday party with Stalin in Tamil Nadu”.
FIRs were registered in Tamil Nadu against him under Sections 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (hate speech), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code. However, he was granted anticipatory bail on March 21, 2023 by the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, with several conditions.
In his petition before the Apex Court, he has contended that he fears for his safety if he is arrested in any of these undisclosed FIRs "which have been lodged by the Respondent in complete violation of basic tenets of the Criminal Jurisprudence and with a sole purpose to curtain the personal liberty of the Petitioner".
Cause Title: Prashant Umrao @ Prashant Kumar v. The Inspector Of Police