Supreme Court stays cases against CSDS’s Sanjay Kumar for post over Maharashtra poll data error

The bench of Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice N V Anjaria also issued notice to the Maharashtra government on his plea seeking quashing of the FIRs.

Kumar’s counsel, Senior Advocate Vivek Tankha and Advocate Sumeer Sodhi, told the bench, “This person has impeccable integrity. Thirty years of conscientious service to the nation and to the world. He is highly respected. It was a mistake. He apologised.”

“You withdrew (the post) also,” CJI Gavai said.

Nodding in agreement, Kumar’s counsel said, “I deleted, I apologised publicly.” He said the FIRs were lodged subsequently.

On August 17, Kumar, in a post on X, said Ramtek and Devlali in Maharashtra had shown a 36-38 per cent decrease in the number of voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Maharashtra.

Two days later, he apologised for the post. “I sincerely apologize for the tweets posted regarding Maharashtra elections. Error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS. The data in row was misread by our Data team. The tweet has since been removed. I had no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation,” Kumar said.

A day later, police in Nagpur and Nashik registered FIRs against him based on complaints lodged by two tehsildars. In both FIRs, Kumar was booked under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nayay Sanhita (BNS), including Section 175 (false election information), Section 353 (1) (B) (statements conducing to public mischief), Section 212 (false information to a public servant), Section 340 (use of forged documents or electronic records as genuine), and Section 356 (defamation).

The FIR in Nagpur was registered on a complaint by the Ramtek tehsildar, while the Nashik FIR was based on a complaint from Nashik’s nayab tehsildar, who accused Kumar of circulating “false and misleading” voter data about the Devlali (SC) Assembly constituency.

Nayab Tehsildar Praveena Shekhar Tadvi, who oversees election-related work in Devlali, said she was instructed by the state election office to take action and, accordingly, the FIR was registered.

According to the complaint filed by the Ramtek Tehsildar, CSDS’s claim was false, misleading citizens and voters.

Challenging the FIRs, Kumar said, “A tweet giving wrong information cannot form the basis of an FIR for offences such as forgery. The allegations made therein are baseless, and the criminal sections invoked are demonstrably inapplicable to the facts and circumstances of the case.”

He contended that the post was a bona fide and inadvertent error, for which he issued a public apology and clarification, and there was no criminal intent.

“The officers reporting to the Election Commission of India have chosen to lodge FIRs against a respected professor and public intellectual for a mere technical error that was instantly corrected. Such actions violate the fundamental principles of fairness and natural justice and serve to create a chilling effect on the exercise of free speech,” his plea said.