NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the ongoing investigation in multiple FIRs lodged against Aumkareshwar Thakur, the alleged creator of the ‘Sulli Deals’ apps, purportedly used for an online auction of several Muslim women.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M M Sundresh, however, agreed to examine his plea for clubbing of FIRs, and issued notice to the states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra and others on his writ petition.
In July 2021, an FIR was registered by the Delhi Police and it was alleged that on a hosting platform ‘Github’, a program namely ‘Sulli deal of the day’ was created where pictures of several Muslim women were uploaded without their consent, purportedly for online auction.
Later, in January this year, another FIR was lodged by the Delhi Police in connection with the ‘Bullibai’ mobile application (app) and it was alleged that the content was aimed at insulting Muslim women.
While hearing the matter, a bench of Justices SK Kaul and MM Sundresh orally observed that there are different offences as there have been multiple uploads and persons, whose pictures have been uploaded, are the aggrieved party.
The bench, which said it would not stay any probe in these FIRs, issued notice on the plea and posted it for hearing after three weeks.
Thakur, in his plea settled by senior advocate Rajeev Sharma, said that multiple FIRs and complaints concerning the Sulli deals app have been filed against him in various states relating to the same incident.
“The relief sought in the present writ petition is in terms of the judgment passed by this court in ‘TT Antony vs State of Kerala’.for quashing all the same or similar FIRs except the first one and that a single investigation may be proceeded with,” said the petition.
In the alternative, the petitioner has sought clubbing of all the subsequent FIRs with the first FIR registered by the Delhi Police in July last year.
“It is submitted that the successive registration of FIRs in Delhi, UP and Maharashtra is beyond the purview of sections 154 and 156 of CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) and is a case which exhibits abuse of statutory power of investigation by different investigating agencies,” the plea said.