SC seeks response from Madhya Pradesh, Delhi home depts on ‘harassment of 2 journalists’ by Bhind police

The bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Satish Chandra Sharma on Wednesday expressed that it wants the facts brought on the court’s record by the state before it decides to provide relief to the journalists by way of interim protection from coercive action. The bench also assured that it will come to the petitioners’ rescue if there is a threat to life.

On May 28, the Delhi High Court had granted Delhi Police protection to Chouhan who was allegedly harassed, threatened, and stripped inside a police station in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhind earlier that month. This protection still continues.

At the time, while Chouhan’s petition had sought that the high court call for a status report from the MP Police into the incident, the court had orally opined that it would be appropriate to pursue the remedy before the Madhya Pradesh High Court instead. Jatav too had a petition pending before the Delhi High Court, which has not been taken up and has been renotified for consideration on July 14.

Chouhan and Jatav had fled to Delhi on May 19 after allegedly facing harassment from the MP Police, and had thereafter filed complaints with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Press Council of India (PCI). Further impressing on the threat from the state police, the journalists informed the top court that on May 28, when Chouhan’s petition was being heard, the Bhind police were camping outside the Delhi High Court campus.

The petitioners alleged that in May, Chouhan and Jatav were “invited” to have a cup of tea with Asit Yadav, Superintendent of Police (SP), Bhind, at his chambers where “they were physically assaulted and battered by (the SP)…and his subordinates.” It was claimed that more than half a dozen other journalists were also present in the SP Asit Yadav’s chamber, who had all been stripped down to their undergarments before being physically assaulted and battered prior to their arrival.

As per the journalists, “SP Asit Yadav was displeased about the extensive reporting about the illegal sand mining activities in the Chambal river that are carried out by the sand mafia in connivance with the local police.”

On May 4, Chouhan and Jatav were on their way from Gwalior to Delhi to meet MP Jyotiraditya Scindia and “apprise him of their plight” when they were “picked up by one Saurabh Sharma, another journalist, on the pretext of going to Delhi by road”, they stated. The two were, instead, allegedly taken to a nearby dhaba where some police officials were waiting, who took the two journalists to SP Yadav’s bungalow to work out a ‘compromise’, warned that they should no longer pursue the matter of being assaulted by Bhind police officers on May 1, and told to drop the charges.

On May 5, they were once again summoned by SP Yadav to his office, “where they were forced to record a video statement in the presence of other police officials, stating that all matters between them and the police have been “resolved”,” the petition states. The video was then circulated by the Bhind police through WhatsApp with the intention of destroying the credibility of the two journalists, it contends.