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Recently, the Delhi HC directed the initiation of contempt proceedings against a senior police officer for filing incorrect and misleading information in a status report submitted to the court.The direction was issued by Justice Mukta Gupta, who ordered the said matter to be listed before a Division Bench of the court on October 9, subject to the orders of the CJI.The court was hearing a petition, filed by one Mala, who had sought directions to the State for the removal of the derogatory remarks made against her and her community as posted on Facebook.
After the issue of the notice, Inspector Manoj Kumar Sharma, Station House Officer PS MayurVihar, filed a status report August 27. According to the report, the request for removal of the post was made on August 16, in accordance to which that the post was then examined and a letter was sent to Facebook through Cyber Cell, East District, Delhi to remove the said content.In view of this status report, the court ordered the State to file a status report specifying whether the content has been successfully removed or not. The second affidavit was filed on September 14 under the signature of the same police officer, assuring the court that the content has been removed from Facebook.However, the counsel for the petitioner highlighted that the police officer’s statement was incorrect as if certain words were typed, the post resurfaces. The court then directed the Cyber Cell in-charge to appear before it.The in-charge told the court that he received the first communication for removal of the post only on September 12, and that too with the wrong URL number. Later, he received the correct URL on September 14 in furtherance to which it was submitted that it would take at least ten days for them to be able to complete the procedure.
Pointing out the discrepancy, the police officer was then asked to explain his stand, to which he claimed that the previous affidavit contained an “inadvertent and bonafide language error”, for which he apologized. He submitted that the request for blocking of the objectionable content was forwarded to the Cyber Cell on August 25, when he intimated the Cell that the petitioner’s request would be sent. However, during the hearing, the Cyber Cell informed the court that even though the police officer’s letter was taken to it on August 25, the request was not accepted as the request did not contain a correct URL. Thereafter, a fresh request was sent to them on September 10.
Hence, the court noted that the police officer was guilty of concealing information from it and had submitting the incorrect facts. Directing initiation of contempt proceedings, the court then ordered, that filing of false affidavit before the Court amounts to criminal contempt, as held in the decisions reported as (1995) 3 SCC 757 Dhananjay Sharma Vs. State of Haryana &Ors., (1990) 2 SCC 149 Hiralal Chawla Vs. State of U.P., (2007) 15 SCC 515 U.P. Resident Employees Coop. Housing Building Society Vs. NOIDA and (2000) 2 SCC 367 Murray & Co. Vs. and shok Kumar Newatia. Therefore, the case has been listed before the Division Bench, subject to order of Hon’bleCJI for initiating appropriate action for criminal contempt against Inspector Manoj Kumar Sharma on 9th October, 2018.
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