The news websites News Tree and News24 (Hindi) reported that Advocate Pravesh Dabas had written to the then Delhi Police Commissioner, S N Srivastava, by email, asking that a case be registered against the novelist and activist Arundhati Roy.
According to the report, the letter concerned remarks she made about the Covid-19 epidemic in India in an interview with the German broadcaster DW News. The letter alleged that the remarks criticised the government's response and harmed the country's image abroad, and asked for a case under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (sedition, as it then stood) and action under the National Security Act, 1980.
About this item
This was a complaint made by the advocate himself, not a case in which he represented a client. A complaint sets out allegations only; the report does not record what action, if any, followed. Section 124A has since been kept in abeyance by the Supreme Court (2022) and is not carried into the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 in the same form.
Where it was reported
- News Tree — report by Prabhakar Mishra, New Delhi
- News24 (Hindi) — "अरुंधति रॉय के खिलाफ देशद्रोह का मामला चलाने की मांग, दिल्ली के वकील ने पुलिस कमिश्नर को भेजी शिकायत"
The report refers to "the Treason Act"; the provision cited, Section 124A, is in the Indian Penal Code.
