CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday reserved the orders on a petition filed by Aadhav Arjuna, general secretary-elections of TVK, praying for orders to quash an FIR registered by the cybercrime wing of Greater Chennai Police in connection with a social media post calling upon the youngsters to stage an uprising in the aftermath of the Karur stampede.
After senior counsel Abishek Manu Singhvi and NR Elango, appearing for the petitioner and the police respectively, completed their arguments, Justice AD Jagadish Chandira reserved the orders.
The police registered the FIR on September 30 under certain sections of BNS for promoting enmity between different groups, making imputations and assertions prejudicial to the national integrity and inciting public disorder following the X post which called for the youngsters, particularly Gen Z, to stage the uprising as in the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka and Nepal. However, he deleted the post within half-an-hour.
Resuming the arguments on Friday, Elango submitted that Aadhav wanted to topple the government and made the call through the post.
Even though the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression, it also places reasonable restrictions on such freedom on matters of the integrity and sovereignty of the country. The social media post incites an offence against the state, he said.
Singhvi maintained that the post was not against the state but aimed at the police brutality and said the tweet was deleted only because he did not want to create a controversy and not because of any sense of guilt.