Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Central Government on the issue of banning the BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The court has also asked the government to file the order issued regarding the removal of tweets made about the documentary.
The next hearing on the matter will be held in the month of April.
Two petitions were taken up for hearing before the bench of Justices Sanjeev Khanna and MM Sundresh.
The first petition was by senior journalist N Ram, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
In this, the ban on the documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’ has been opposed. Along with this, the issue of removal of the tweet made by the petitioners from Twitter has also been raised. The second petition was of advocate ML Sharma.
Senior advocate CU Singh appeared in the court to defend the first petition.
He said that the government, using emergency powers, got the tweets of the petitioners removed from Twitter.
On this, Justice Khanna asked why he did not file a petition in the High Court regarding this? Singh replied that the matter of the IT Rules under which the government has taken this action is pending in the Supreme Court.
After listening to Singh’s argument, the bench said that it is issuing notice to the central government. The next hearing of the case will be held in April.
Urging the court for an early hearing, the senior lawyer said that people across the country are being prevented from watching the documentary.
On this, Justice Khanna said that people are still watching this documentary.
The judges refused to keep the next date of hearing soon, saying, “We are giving the nearest date. We do not want to pass any order in the matter without seeing the reply of the Central Government. The Center has been given 3 weeks to respond.Time is being given. After this, in the next 2 weeks, the petitioners can give their reply on the Centre’s reply”
After this, lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma told his petition to be different from the first case and said that he has come to the Supreme Court with a petition for the common people, whereas in the first petition the petitioners are putting their personal grievances before the court.
But the judges refused to hear this petition separately, saying, “Your petition will also be heard in April itself. Notice is being issued to the Center on this also.”
