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The top court granted liberty to Anand Rai, to approach the High Court in the event any charge sheet is being filed in the case of an alleged defamatory post against the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister’s under secretary.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant said it is not going to stop the investigation in the case at this stage and noted that Rai was arrested and granted bail on April 9, 2022.
At the outset, senior advocate PS Patwalia, appearing for the under secretary, said that the accused deliberately used derogatory words and circulated the same on WhatsApp group. He submitted that Rai is not innocent and as he knew very well what is the name of the secretary but instead used a derogatory word in place of surname and circulated it.
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The bench said that it can ask Rai to tender an unconditional apology to the secretary Laxman Singh Markam. Patwalia said the accused was arrested and granted bail in the case and the investigation in the case should not be interdicted. The bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Rai, that it thought it was a plea for protection of arrest but that stage has gone and he has been released on bail.
“Now, we can grant you the liberty to challenge the charge sheet, if any is filed in the case after the investigation. The High Court has given him liberty to move under section 482 of CrPC. We are not stopping the investigation at this stage. We are keeping his remedies open”, the bench said. On April 8, the top court had agreed to hear the plea of Rai in the case.
The petition, filed through lawyer Sumeer Sodhi, has challenged the April 4, 2022 order passed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur by which his plea seeking quashing of the FIR was dismissed. The top court had taken note of the submissions of senior advocate Vivek Tankha appearing for Dr. Anand Rai, that the accused had been arrested from a hotel in Delhi on Thursday night in the cases in which the other accused is out on bail on furnishing of a bond. The FIR against Rai was lodged in March this year by Laxman Singh Markam, an Under Secretary level officer, who is working as an officer with the Chief Minister’s office in Madhya Pradesh.
As per the Facebook post of the accused, the question and answer keys of a state examination were leaked from the phone of the officer posted with the CMO and this led to the registration of the case. The plea also challenged the order of the high court vacating the interim protection granted to Rai from any coercive action by the state police in the case.
“The present case highlights the instances where a mighty and vindictive state may leave no stone unturned in order to harass a citizen and abuse the process of law to convert a possible individual case of defamation into an FIR,” the plea said.
“The petitioner before this court is the whistleblower of the infamous Vyapam scam arising out of the state of Madhya Pradesh and therefore the State has had an axe to grind against him,” it said.
The Facebook post would reveal that Rai had merely questioned how the question and answer keys to the said examination had leaked on the mobile phone of one individual and therefore stated that the said incident required investigation by CBI, it said.
“The high court has failed to consider the malafide intent and haste in the conduct of the state police to lodge an FIR in order to persecute the petitioner at the behest of an individual who enjoys a public office with the state,” it said.
The petition said that Rai had received a screenshot of a mobile phone photograph by the name of Laxman Singh on March 26, 2022, from an anonymous source on WhatsApp.
“The screenshot had question papers and answer key of ‘Samvida Shikshak Varg-III Exam’,” which was referred to by him in his Facebook post, the plea said.
Earlier, Rai had played an active role in the alleged unearthing of the Vyapam scam which was later probed by the CBI.