SC quashes Congress leader Pankaj Punia's plea seeking relief over FIR against tweet

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by Haryana Congress leader Pankaj Punia seeking withdrawal the FIRs registered against him in Noida, Lucknow, and Madhya Pradesh over his abusive tweet against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.

Refusing to grant any relief to Punia, the apex court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra with Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Indira Banerjee dismissed his petition.

Punia, the former secretary of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee, was recently arrested for his tweet that allegedly hurt religious sentiments and was abusive of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

"We are not inclined to entertain this petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution of India. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed," the Supreme Court bench said in its order.

However, the top court granted Punia the liberty to approach the concerned High Court or appropriate forum for relief in the case. Senior lawyer Sanjay Hegde and other advocates Sukhvinder Singh Nara, Pranjal Kishore, and MP Vinod had appeared in the SC on his behalf.

READ | Congress Neta Pankaj Punia Sent To One-day Police Remand Over Abusive Tweet Against UP CM

Pankaj Punia arrested, sent to one-day police remand

An FIR was filed against Pankaj Punia by the Lucknow police, following which the Haryana Police arrested the Congress leader from Karnal. The FIR filed with Lucknow police was for an abusive tweet criticising the Uttar Pradesh Government's management of the migrant crisis with using derogatory terms directed against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The Karnal court on May 20 had sent Punia to one-day police remand.

The tweet was in reference to the tussle between the UP government and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra over the 1000 buses that the party had reported arranged for migrants workers.

READ | Congress Leader Pankaj Punia Arrested By Haryana Police In Karnal

After receiving massive backlash, the Congress leader deleted his tweet soon after which a criminal complaint was filed against him for use of 'malicious' language.

The copy of the complaint read, "The accused has not only used derogatory and defamatory language against the Respected Chief Minister of UP, but he has also deliberately published the aforesaid Tweet solely for the purpose of insulting and outraging religious sentiments of the members of Hindu community and to promote disharmony, enmity, hatred and ill will between different religious groups and also to provoke breach of peace and to severally insult the religious beliefs of Hindus”.

READ | FIR Against Congress' Alka Lamba For Atrocious Remarks Against PM Modi, UP CM Yogi

READ | FIR Filed Against Congress Leader Pankaj Punia Over Abusive Tweet Slamming UP Govt

(With inputs from ANI)