New Delhi: Supreme Court Friday sought responses from the Maharashtra and Assam governments on YouTuber Ashish Chanchlani’s plea seeking to quash or transfer to Mumbai an FIR filed over the alleged obscene utterances made during an episode of India’s Got Latent show aired recently.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh issued the notices and tagged Chanchlani’s plea with podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia’s pending petition.
Chanchlani is named in the FIR in Assam, in which Allahbadia is reportedly shown to be the prime accused as he made the contentious remarks on the YouTube show hosted by comic Samay Raina.
During the hearing, the bench told senior advocate Ajay Tiwari, appearing for Chanchlani, that he was already granted bail in the matter.
Tiwari, along with advocate Shubham Kulshreshtha, agreed with the bench but argued that he was against lodging of multiple FIRs over a single show.
The bench said it was already hearing the issue and tagged Chanchlani’s plea.
On February 18, the top court granted interim protection from arrest to Allahbadia but reprimanded him calling his comments “vulgar” and saying he had “dirty mind” which put the society to shame.
Several FIRs were lodged against Allahbadia, popularly known as BeerBiceps, for the comment on parents and sex during the show’s episode.
In his plea, drafted through advocate Shubham Kulshreshtha and filed by advocate Manju Jaitley, Chanchlani has sought quashing of the FIR registered at Cyber police station Police Commissionerate, Guwahati Crime Branch, Assam.
“Quash the FIR bearing No…registered at Cyber PS Police Commissionerate, Guwahati Crime Branch, Assam as it was registered later,” said the plea.
Alternatively, the YouTuber sought transfer of the FIR in Guwahati to Mumbai on the ground that the one in Maharashtra was registered first.
The Gauhati High Court February 18 granted interim bail to Chanchlani while hearing his anticipatory bail petition and asked him to remain present before the investigating officer within 10 days.
Chanchlani’s counsel argued that their client did not utter anything on the show and the allegations in the FIR were made against the co-accused persons only.
The FIR was registered by Guwahati Police on a complaint of an individual February 10 under various sections of the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhtia, Information Technology Act, Cinematograph Act and Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.
PTI
