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The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the petition of Shajan Sakarya, editor of Malayalam news portal Marunadan Malayalee, who is seeking to be released on pre-emptive bail in a case in which he was booked by the Kerala State Police under certain provisions of the Classified Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, for broadcasting a story allegedly Discredits the ruling CPI (M) MLA PV Sreenijin.
India’s bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Justice P.S. Narasimha will hear the petition challenging the Kerala High Court’s June 30 order denying anticipatory bail in the case.
The case was registered under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(u) of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and Section 120 of the Kerala Police Act.
Although Skaria asserted that the news item did not refer to the legislator’s caste, the Supreme Court ruled that “according to the wording of Section 3(1)(r), a reference to a victim’s caste name is not necessary to attract a crime” under the SC/ST Act.
On 3 July, the Kerala State Police searched the offices of the news portal and the residences of several people associated with it. During searches at various locations, including offices in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi, the police confiscated several items, including laptops and cameras.
In a video posted on Marunadan Malayali YouTube channel on July 4, Skaria said “Police raided offices across the state as if they were looking for a terrorist”. He added that “the raids were not limited to the homes of journalists, but even to the headquarters of their relatives and friends.”
The Kerala State Working Journalists (KUWJ) condemned the police action. “The police are free to conduct an investigation against Shajan if he is facing a case. But it is very unfortunate that the homes of journalists associated with Marunadan Malayali were raided.”
On 5 July, the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajiv Chandrasekhar criticized the action against the news portal.
Referring to the police action, he said, “As much as we have been criticizing Congress and various state governments for using the law to silence the media, I think it is important for the people of the country to look at what Pinarayi Vijayan is doing in Kerala… His government has been defrauded after scam ranging from Smuggling gold into the AI camera. It has been repeatedly suppressing the media and using threats of intimidation to silence the media.”
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