Supreme Court grants woman lawyer protection from FIR Lodged against her in connection to Manipur Crisis
HY News
11 July, 2023 02:58 pm IST
Representative File
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted interim protection from arrest to a woman lawyer in connection with an FIR lodged by the Manipur Police for her visit to the strife-hit state as part of a fact-finding mission.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud took note of the submissions of senior lawyer Siddharth Dave, appearing for advocate Deeksha Dwivedi, while protecting her from arrest and listed her plea for further hearing this Friday.
The bench, also comprising justices P S Narasimha and Manoj Misra, asked Dave to provide a copy of the petition to the counsel assisting Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who is representing the Manipur government in a batch of petitions pertaining to the ethnic violence in the state.
Dwivedi was part of a three-member fact-finding team of a women lawyers' association, the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW).
The woman's lawyer was on a fact-finding mission on the Manipur violence and an FIR was registered by the state police invoking various penal provisions, including the offence of waging war against India.
The FIR was registered at Imphal police station on Saturday night against the members of the fact-finding committee, including CPI leader and National Federation of Indian Women General (NIFW) secretary Annie Raja, who had termed the violence in Manipur “state-sponsored”.
"The petitioner has submitted that she does not have a copy of the FIR at this stage. We have requested Mr. Dave to ensure that the copy of the petition is served on the advocate instructing the Solicitor General of India. The SG may take instructions on the background of the case,” it added.
The court will hear the matter again on July 14.
On Monday, the top court, while hearing a batch of petitions on the violence in the state, said it was not a platform to be used for escalating tensions in the state and asked the warring ethnic groups to exercise restraint during the court proceedings.
(with inputs from PTI)
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