Supreme Court issues contempt notice to BJP leader Manoj Tiwari
New Delhi, Sep 19 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the presence of BJP MP Manoj Tiwari before it for breaking the lock of a sealed premises in Delhi's Gokulpur village.
"It's important that elected members should not defy the order of this court," a bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur, Justice Abdul S. Nazeer and Justice Deepak Gupta said while issuing a contempt notice to Tiwari and asked him to appear before it on September 25.
Terming the action of Tiwari "unfortunate", the bench said it shows a "disturbed affair where a member of Parliament is alleged to have broken the seal of some premises" despite sealing operation in terms of orders passed by the apex court.
Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, assisting the court in the sealing issue, requested the court to take stringent action against Tiwari for breaking the lock of a sealed premises.
The monitoring committee said members of political parties and others were intentionally and deliberately violating the court's order not to interfere in the sealing drive against illegal and unauthorised construction in the city.
It said the court should act tough against such persons to ensure that its orders were not violated.
Tiwari, meanwhile, again visited the village on Tuesday and protested against the sealing drive initiated by municipal authorities, Kumar told the bench.
He contended that the police has registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party chief Manoj Tiwari for illegally breaking the lock.
He has been booked under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 461 and 465 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act.
"The monitoring committee requests this court to pass stringent directions, including initiation of contempt proceedings against Manoj Tiwari, MP, for seal-tampering so that sealing operations may continue uninterrupted as per the direction of this court," the report said.
The top court has time and again warned political leaders not to politicise the issue of sealing and had earlier issued contempt notice to BJP MLA O.P. Sharma and Municipal Councillor Gunjan Gupta for preventing the committee for taking action against unauthorised constructions in Delhi but the two were let off after they tendered an unconditional apology.
A video footage of Tiwari breaking a sealed lock of a house in an unauthorised colony went viral on social media.
The sealing drive in Delhi is being carried out by a Supreme Court-appointed Monitoring Committee against business establishments using residential properties for commercial purposes. It is being implemented by three BJP-led Municipal Corporations of Delhi.
The committee was set up by the Supreme Court in 2006. In 2012, the apex court asked the committee to stop the drive. But in December 2017 it ordered resumption of the drive.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
