Delhi Police on Saturday filed an FIR against news portal ‘The Wire’ and its editors on a complaint by BJP IT department head Amit Malviya accusing the media outlet of “cheating and forgery” and “tarnishing” his reputation.
Malviya had on Friday said he would pursue criminal and civil proceedings against the portal over stories, since retracted, that claimed the BJP leader enjoyed the privilege of flagging any post and having it taken down by Instagram (owned by Meta) without the involvement of the company’s content moderation process.
Further details of police action are awaited.
In another latest development, The Wire’s editor Siddharth Varadarajan confirmed to Scroll.in that the news organisation has filed a police complaint against their researcher Devesh Kumar, who was known to be the primary person working on articles about Malviya’s alleged powers on Meta platforms.
Malviya’s complaint was filed with Delhi Police’s special commissioner (crime) against The Wire, its founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia and M K Venu, deputy editor and executive news producer Jahnavi Sen, the Foundation for Independent Journalism and other unknown people.
Devesh Kumar was not named in the complaint filed by Malviya.
The complaint was filed for various offences punishable under sections 420 (cheating), 468 and 469 (forgery), 471 (fraud), 500 (defamation) r/w 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (criminal act) of the Indian Penal Code.
“I am filing the present complaint for the offences of cheating, forgery for the purpose of harming the reputation, using as genuine a forged document or electronic record and defamation amongst other provisions of the IPC by the accused,” read Malviya’s complaint.
The BJP leader had noted that ‘The Wire’ has refrained from apologising to him despite “maligning and tarnishing my reputation and causing serious harm to my professional career”.
“My role requires me to vociferously advocate the BJP’s point of view on national issues across platforms. This role is based on trust and camaraderie between me and my interlocutors across platforms and more importantly with the public,” he had said in a statement on Friday.
“However, The Wire’s stories have vitiated the atmosphere and severely dented relationships and trust built over years in order for me to carry out the functions of my responsibility,” he said.
The Wire, in a statement on October 27, said journalists rely on sources for stories and do their best to verify material they receive. “Technological evidence is more complicated and the usual due diligence may not always reveal the fraud perpetrated upon a publication. This is what happened to us,” it said.
The news website also said that the “person responsible” is no longer with The Wire in any capacity.
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