Days after the Guwahati Crime Branch booked The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and senior journalist Karan Thapar under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita and other charges, the Supreme Court granted them interim protection from arrest, LiveLaw reported.  

This comes days after the court had shielded Vardarajan from coercive action in a separate FIR filed in Assam’s Morigaon under the same section. 

The court has posted the matter for hearing on September 15. 

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi reportedly passed the order after senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan submitted that a summons was issued to Varadarajan and Thapar after the Supreme Court granted interim protection.

The Morigaon FIR was filed after an article about Operation Sindoor titled “‘IAF lost fighter jets to Pak because of political leadership’s constraints’: Indian defence attache”. It was lodged under BNS Section 152, which pertains to acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India. The fresh summons by the Guhawati crime branch on August 12 cited the same charges, in addition to the BNS sections pertaining to promoting enmity between different groups, publishing false or misleading information and criminal conspiracy. 

However, The Wire said the Guwahati crime branch had not shared details of the new FIR.

A report on the news outlet referring to the summons had said that “the FIR date was not mentioned, no details of the alleged offence were provided and a copy of the FIR was not included – as the police are legally obliged to do while serving a summons under this section of the BNSS”.

Section 152 of BNS (‘Acts endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India’) is seen as a rebranded version of India’s earlier sedition provision that the apex court stayed in 2022.

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