NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed further proceedings in the FIRs lodged against Sanjay Kumar, co director of CSDS, an autonomous government funded research institute for his post on X related to polling data in Maharashtra.
A bench of Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice N V Anjaria provided the relief to Kumar on his writ petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution, seeking quashing of the FIRs on the ground that those were abuse of the process of law.
His counsel claimed the petitioner has an impeccable record of 30 years of public service. He is very respectable person. It was a genuine mistake for which he has apologised publicly.
The FIRs were lodged against Kumar, even though he apologised his post which claimed significant voter number discrepancies in the 2024 Maharashtra elections.
He had later deleted the post, referring to data errors.
On his writ petition, the court passed the interim order, issuing notice in the matter.
On August 17, he had made the post but subsequently on August 19, he had deleted the post, tendering apology for the mistake.
The officers registered two FIRs, one in Nashik and another in Nagpur, for offences under Sections 175, 353 (1)(b), 212, 340(1) (2), 356 of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Kumar claimed the post, which was a bona fide and inadvertent error, could not constitute the offences alleged against him.
The registration of a criminal case on the grounds of an inadvertent technical error amounts to a malicious prosecution, with a
clear ulterior motive to harass and intimidate him, his plea contended.
In his plea, he said on August 17, 2025, his associate carried out research regarding a comparison of voter lists in relation to Maharashtra elections. After receiving sufficient assurance from the said associate, the petitioner uploaded two posts in which the statistics displayed an increase and decrease in the number of voters of specific constituencies.
On August 18, 2025, well wishers of the petitioner approached him to discuss the statistics. Subsequently, it was brought to his knowledge that the statistics presented by him on the platform were inaccurate. Accordingly, he asked his associate to check the statistics again. It emerge due to a technical error on the part of the associate, the rows of data in comparison were misarranged thereby displaying the wrong increase/decrease in the voter lists.
He approached the apex court, contending there are multiple FIRs against him and it is not feasible for him to approach different benches of the High Court at Maharashtra due to territorial jurisdiction.
He alleged the FIRs have been lodged in two different cities in Maharashtra in an orchestrated manner and therefore it is clear that the entire State machinery has been deployed to hound and harass him.
"Considering the provision of BNS which have been invoked in the FIR, there is a genuine apprehension in the mind of the petitioner that the moment he enters the State of Maharashtra, he would be apprehended. Hence due to violation of fundamental right of the petitioner under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, he invoking writ jurisdiction of this Court under Article 32," his plea stated.
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