​Without warrant: On police action and journalists in Chennai

The seizure of mobile phones from some journalists in the name of investigating the leak of sensitive details of the First Information Report (FIR) pertaining to the rape committed on the Anna University campus in Chennai in December 2024 is wholly unwarranted and possibly illegal. The Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the Madras High Court to take over the probe, appears to believe that the source of the alleged disclosure could be mediapersons who may have downloaded the FIR from a national crime network database. What makes the episode an instance of harassment is that the journalists were subjected to intrusive and distasteful questioning. Instead of probing how and why the FIR leaked, the SIT is trying to find out whether they had put it in the public domain. The High Court had already been told that the FIR was inadvertently uploaded, because of a technical issue, on the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems before being taken down. The High Court had directed a departmental inquiry into the leaking of the FIR (the direction has now been stayed by the Supreme Court). What was a direction to find out the source of a departmental leak has been transformed into a roving inquiry as to who may have circulated it in the public domain. Unless the reporters summoned by the police had themselves reported or posted details revealing the survivor’s identity, there is no reason for seizing their phones.

Based on the High Court referring to the alleged circulation of details about the survivor’s identity, a separate FIR has been registered under Section 72 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which makes it an offence to publish any detail that may lead to the survivor’s identity becoming known. Presumably, the SIT is trying to trace those who made such publication, but the real question is whether the details were actually published in any newspaper, TV channel or social media post. If such a disclosure existed, the police should be summoning those in charge of those outlets or handles instead of calling all those who downloaded material from the Internet. A larger question is whether the police have the blanket authority to seize mobile phones or devices without judicial authorisation or any credible reason that an offence has been committed. The Supreme Court has already asked the Centre to frame guidelines for such seizures, including the need for a warrant and an element of proportionality. An unguided power to seize phones threatens the privacy of individuals and, in the case of the media, is a brazen intimidation tactic and an attempt to identify and harass their sources and an attack on freedom of expression. The police should not only return the seized phones immediately but also limit their probe to specific instances of publication or disclosure of details that compromised the survivor’s identity.