Mr Surya had stated that a farmer had committed suicide after his land was 'taken over by Waqf'. (File)
Bangalore:
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday quashed a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Karnataka High Court against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Tejasvi Surya in an alleged case of spreading fake news about the suicide of a farmer in Haveri district in the state.
Justice Nagaprasanna passed the order on Mr Surya's request to quash the FIR.
On November 8 this year, Mr Surya had posted on his X-handle that a farmer in the state had committed suicide after his land was taken over by the Waqf board.
“A farmer in Haveri commits suicide after discovering that his land has been taken over by Waqf! In their haste to appease the minorities, CM Siddaramaiah and Union Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan have unleashed catastrophic consequences in Karnataka that are becoming impossible to control by the day ” he says. message read.
He had also posted links to a news report from a local portal that made such a claim.
Police subsequently issued a statement saying the farmer had committed suicide due to mounting debts. Mr Surya was subsequently booked by the Haveri Cybercrime, Economic and Narcotic Offenses Police, for spreading fake news under Section 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
According to the FIR, Mr Surya had stated that a farmer, identified as Rudrappa Channappa Balikai, died by suicide after discovering that his land had been “taken over by Waqf”.
Mr Surya, in a post on This message has now been deleted.
Earlier, Tejasvi Surya, responding to an FIR lodged against him, had said that the Karnataka Congress government is trying to “silence all those who are trying to expose the atrocities of the Waqf Board.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
