Organised crime charge against journalists dropped
“The essential ingredients of Section 111 of BNS do not attract at this stage as there is no involvement of monetary transactions or other factors mentioned under Section 111,” the court observed.
A Hyderabad court has struck down the Telangana police’s attempt to prosecute two journalists under Section 111 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) — a charge reserved for serious organised crimes with penalties ranging from five years to life imprisonment, and even the death penalty if the crime results in death — for allegedly circulating defamatory content against Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy.
The court’s decision comes amid a growing debate over press freedom and CM Reddy’s Saturday’s warning that individuals “posing as journalists” and posting abusive content against public representatives would be “stripped and paraded in public”.
On March 12, additional chief judicial magistrate G Anusha, while remanding Revathi Pogadadanda, managing director of YouTube news channel Pulse Digital News Network, and Thanvi Yadav, an employee, to judicial custody, ruled that invoking Section 111 against them was unjustified.
“The essential ingredients of Section 111 of BNS do not attract at this stage as there is no involvement of monetary transactions or other factors mentioned under Section 111,” the court observed, dropping the charge.
However, the court maintained other charges under the Information Technology Act and BNS provisions related to creating and circulating false information, stating that the First Information Report (FIR) prima facie contained well-founded accusations.
The two women were arrested on March 11 after a complaint by a Congress worker, who alleged that a video circulating on X (formerly Twitter) showed Yadav interviewing a man who made derogatory and abusive statements about CM Reddy and his family.
Defending the journalists, their lawyer Jakkula Laxman argued that Section 111 was grossly disproportionate in the context of their alleged offence.
“All the other sections invoked carry a maximum punishment of less than seven years. Hence, immediate arrest was not warranted,” Laxman said, alleging that the women were arrested in haste due to political pressure.
The additional public prosecutor (APP), however, defended the police, arguing that the accused, being reputed journalists, should have shown restraint.
“The conduct of the accused was highly provocative and might have led to a disturbance of law and order in the State,” the APP contended.
The court’s ruling comes even as CM Reddy’s furious remarks in the Telangana assembly on Saturday, where he lashed out at social media criticism and hinted at a new law to regulate journalism.
“Let media organisations, their associations, I&PR and other authorised agencies define a journalist, list out their names and give them to the government. They can be exempted. Others will be treated as criminals and action will be taken as per law,” Reddy said.
He explicitly defended the police action against Pogadadanda and Yadav, accusing the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) of orchestrating online attacks against him.
“They (BRS) condemned the arrest of these two women, but should I remain patient forever when my family members, especially the women,are being abused?” Reddy said, his voice rising in anger.
The CM then issued a startling warning, saying: “I will have them stripped and paraded because they have no right to comment on women in my family.”
He also accused the BRS of using paid actors to create abusive content, stating that the video in question was shot at the BRS office and then spread online to malign him.
Meanwhile, both Pogadadanda and Yadav have moved for bail, while the police, which had not initially sought their custody, has now filed an application seeking to question them further.
According to Laxman, the police claim that a third suspect—the owner of the X handle through which the video was first shared—remains untraceable, and further interrogation of the two women is necessary.
The court is expected to rule on both the custody application and the bail pleas on March 17.
