New Delhi, May 27: The Delhi Police on Wednesday filed a status report before a court here stating that details of the X account allegedly belonging to journalist Rana Ayyub, who is facing an FIR over 2016-17 “derogatory” posts, were awaited.
The police also told the court that further investigation would be conducted after it receives a reply from the social media platform.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Himanshu Raman Singh was hearing a plea filed by advocate Amita Sachdeva seeking directions to the Cyber police station (south district) to ensure that the entire contents of her complaint regarding Ayyub making derogatory posts on X (formerly Twitter) were incorporated into the FIR, in full compliance with the court’s order.
The plea also said that the name of the accused must be correctly recorded in the relevant column instead of being marked as “unknown”.
On January 25, the court, based on Sachdeva’s plea seeking registration of an FIR against Ayyub for “insults to Hindu deities, spreading of anti-India sentiment and incitement of religious disharmony”, had said that police investigation was expedient considering the allegations’ gravity.
It had directed that an FIR be lodged under IPC sections 153 A (punishment for promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 505 (statements conducing public mischief) of the IPC.
An FIR was registered two days later, following which Sachdeva filed the present plea.
The status report filed in connection with the plea said, “During the course of investigation on January 28, 2025, a notice under Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was uploaded on Twitter portal for obtaining details of the alleged X account @RanaAyyub and the tweet which was posted by the alleged X account.
Thereafter, again notices were sent to X under Section 91 of the CrPC through the Twitter portal on March 3, April 10 and April 22 for obtaining details of the alleged X account (for which) reply is still awaited.”
Section 91 of CrPC pertains to issuing of summons for production of document or any other necessary or desirable for investigation.
It said that on checking the X account, the alleged derogatory posts were not available.
“On receipt of the reply from X, further investigation will be conducted accordingly, and investigation of the case will be finalised,” the status report said.
Sachdeva’s counsels Makrand D Adkar and Vikram Kumar said that the court sought a fresh action taken report or status report from the police and posted the matter for further proceedings on July 30.–(PTI)
