Supreme Court Grants Interim Protection To Aaj Tak's Sudhir Chaudhary In Jharkhand Police FIR Over Alleged Anti-Tribal Remarks

The Supreme Court on Monday (March 11) granted interim protection to Sudhir Chaudhary, Consulting Editor of Aaj Tak TV channel, in relation to an FIR registered by the Jharkhand Police over the alleged remarks made by him against the tribal community following the arrest of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

While issuing notice on the petition filed by Chaudhary returnable within three weeks, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra ordered that no coercive steps be taken against the petitioner on the basis of the FIR registered by the Ranchi police under the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 in the meantime.

The petitioner filed the Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court after the Jharkhand High Court declined to stay the proceedings against him and posted his petition to April.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that no offence under the SC/ST Act is ex-facie made out against him.

The FIR was registered for the offences under Sections 3(1)(r), 3(1)(s) and 3(1)(u) of the SC/ST Act on a complaint filed by the Adivasi Sena.

 Case : Sudhir Chaudhary v. State of Jharkhand SLP(Crl) No. 3525/2024

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