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The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Advocate Prashant Kumar Umrao, who was arrested on charges of spreading wrong information on social media site X ( formerly called Twitter) about attacks against Bihari migrant workers in Tamil Nadu.
Earlier on April 6 this year, the Apex Court had granted interim relief to the accused on his Special Leave Petition (SLP), which was made absolute today.
The Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra said that only one FIR was registered against Umrao, noting that investigation in the matter was complete.
The top court of the country took in view the submissions of the Additional Advocate General for the State and observed that the criminal petition no. 143 of 2023 did not survive and was disposed of. So far it has been fairly stated that the investigation was complete and the charge sheet was likely to be filed. In that view of the matter, the SLP would be made absolute in terms of the interim order dated April 6, 2023, it added.
Representing the State, AAG Amit Anand Tiwari apprised the court that only one FIR was registered against Umrao in the matter as opposed to the contention that multiple FIRs were filed against him and were pending enquiry.
He said that investigation in the case was complete. The writ petition was premised on the fact that multiple FIRs were filed. Now in the counter affidavit, the State has disclosed that only one FIR has been filed. He (Umrao) can avail whatever remedies were available to him, he could challenge this FIR, added the AAG.
In its April order, the Apex Court 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 Bench directed the petitioner to appear before the police station on every Monday at 10:30 am and thereafter as and when required.
Umrao alleged in the SLP that the 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, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar. It alleged that ‘15 people from Bihar’ had been ‘hanged in a room in Tamil Nadu’ for ‘speaking Hindi,’ adding that 12 of them had sadly ‘died’. It further said that following the incident, Tejaswi Yadav shamelessly celebrated his birthday party with Stalin (Chief Minister) in Tamil Nadu.