Editors Guild of India moves Supreme Court against FIR by Manipur police over report on conflict

The Editors Guild of India (EGI) has moved Supreme Court against an FIR registered by Manipur police against a fact-finding team of the (EGI) and the organisation’s president over a report on the conflict in the northeastern state.

The matter was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra by Senior Advocate Shyam Divan.

Divan informed the Court that the EGI was seeking emergent directions under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution to quash two FIRs registered by the State police.

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The Manipur police have enlisted a body of evidence against the EGI for purportedly advancing ill will between various gatherings, under various sections of the IPC, after the last option distributed a report on media's reportage of the ethnic violence in Manipur on September 2. 

Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh likewise confirmed that his government had filed an FIR against the president and three individuals from the EGI and blamed them for attempting to incite conflicts in the State.

In addition to EGI President Seema Mustafa, three senior journalists—Seima Guha, Bharat Bhushan, and Sanjay Kapoor—who traveled to the state between August 7 and 10 to investigate media coverage of the ethnic violence were booked.

The EGI report expressed that there is outrageous tension on columnists whether Meitei or Kuki to mirror the predominant perspective on their ethnic social orders and the circumstance was made more troublesome with the restriction on the Web, that is a fundamental device of current news-casting.