Assam Police FIR: Supreme Court grants four-week interim protection to journalist Abhisar Sharma 

The Supreme Court of India on Thursday (August 28, 2025) granted a four-week interim protection from arrest to journalist Abhisar Sharma and directed him to approach the Gauhati High Court to challenge an FIR lodged against him by the Assam Police over a video post allegedly criticising the State’s policies. The FIR had invoked Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which penalises “acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.”

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the journalist, argued that Section 152 had become an “omnibus provision” that was being indiscriminately invoked to stifle dissent. However, a Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh questioned why the petitioner had approached the apex court directly, “bypassing” the Gauhati High Court.

“We are not inclined to entertain the challenge to the FIR. We grant interim protection of four weeks to the petitioner to enable him to approach the High Court,” the Bench said.

Mr. Sibal pointed out that the court had earlier granted protection to senior journalists Siddharth Varadarajan, Karan Thapar, and members of the Foundation for Independent Journalism in a sedition case filed by the Assam Police’s Crime Branch. “Some uniformity must be there. They will lodge another FIR, then what will I do?” he said.

The Bench noted that the present FIR pertained to a “separate” matter and directed Mr. Sharma to approach the High Court for appropriate relief. However, it sought the Union Government’s response on Mr. Sharma’s plea challenging the constitutional validity of Section 152 of the BNS and agreed to tag it with other pending petitions assailing the vires of the provision.

In his petition, Mr. Sharma contended that the BNS provision was in essence the colonial Section 124A (sedition) of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code. The operation of Section 124A has been kept in abeyance by the Supreme Court, which referred the provision to a Constitution Bench for judicial scrutiny and an authoritative pronouncement. In May 2022, a three-judge Bench led by then Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana had observed that the sedition law was not in tune with the current social milieu, and was intended for a time when this country was under the colonial regime. 

The journalist had moved the court against an FIR filed by a private complainant over his video questioning the State Government’s decision to allot 3,000 bighas of tribal land to a private company for setting up a cement plant. The video, posted on his YouTube channel on August 8, 2025, was based on proceedings before the Gauhati High Court. The complainant had alleged that the video was capable of fuelling communal disharmony and undermining trust in the State administration.

In his petition, Mr. Sharma called the FIR against him “a classic case of misuse and abuse of section 152 BNS to stifle dissent and journalistic freedom.” He said that prosecuting a journalist under a provision carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment was grossly disproportionate and a constitutional affront.

“Criticism of a Chief Minister’s policies and politics cannot, by any stretch, be treated as an attack on the unity of India. If every dissenting voice against a State Government is criminalised as ‘anti-national’, the constitutional guarantee of free expression becomes illusory,” Mr. Sharma said in his plea filed through advocate Sumeer Sodhi.