New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday granted protection from arrest to psephologist Sanjay Kumar in connection with two FIRs lodged by the Election Commission of India (ECI), reported PTI.
The FIRs accused Kumar of spreading misleading information on Maharashtra electoral rolls through social media posts, which he later withdrew.
Senior advocate Vivek Tankha and lawyer Sumeer Sodhi, appearing for Kumar, argued that FIRs were lodged despite the psephologist issuing a public apology.
A bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice N V Anjaria took note of the submissions, and stayed further proceedings against Kumar.
“By an ad-interim order, there shall be stay of further proceedings,” the top court ruled.
“Issue notice. In the meantime, there shall be no coercive action,” the CJI said.
Kumar, co-director of Lokniti at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), approached the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the two FIRs registered against him in Maharashtra.
The petition stated that the FIRs constitute a misuse of law and are an attempt to harass an academic for what was, at worst, a bona fide error.
Kumar’s counsel told the court that he is an officer with impeccable integrity during his service spanning three decades. Advocate Tankha said that the petitioner had committed a genuine mistake following which he withdrew his statement.
The CJI-headed bench said, “He has withdrawn it also. Normally we would not entertain it. But we will issue a notice.”
The case against Kumar was registered on a complaint by the district electoral officers (DEO) of Nashik and Nagpur in Maharashtra, alleging that the psephologist was trying to mislead voters with wrong data on the Ramtek and Devlali Assembly segments for the Lok Sabha and state elections held in 2024.
Kumar had written on X that the number of voters in those two constituencies fell by around 36% and 38%. Later, he published a fresh tweet withdrawing the statement, clarifying that the error occurred due to misreading of a row by the team researching the data.
