['Fake' Tweet On PM Modi] Saket Gokhale Granted Bail By Gujarat Court, Arrested Again In A Fresh Case
A court in Gujarat's Ahmedabad district yesterday granted bail to Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Saket Gokhale in connection with an FIR against him for allegedly endorsing a fake news report on Twitter pertaining to Prime Minister Modi's visit to the Morbi last month at the site of the bridge collapse which killed 135 persons. However, he was arrested soon thereafter in a fresh FIR...
A court in Gujarat's Ahmedabad district yesterday granted bail to Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Saket Gokhale in connection with an FIR against him for allegedly endorsing a fake news report on Twitter pertaining to Prime Minister Modi's visit to the Morbi last month at the site of the bridge collapse which killed 135 persons.
However, he was arrested soon thereafter in a fresh FIR filed against him in Morbi, on similar allegations, under Section 125 IPC [promoting enmity between classes during the elections]
This fresh case against him has been registered on similar allegations accusing him of tweeting a fake report claiming that as per an RTI reply, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Morbi in October this year after the bridge collapse incident had incurred a cost of ₹30 crores.
Before being arrested, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate M. V. Chauhan had granted him bail after he was produced before the court following the completion of his police custody.
The tweet made by Gokhale reads:
"RTI reveals that Modi's visit to Morbi for a few hours cost ₹30 crores. Of this, ₹5.5. crore was purely for 'welcome, event management, & photography'. 135 victims who died got ₹4 lakh ex-gratia each i.e. ₹5 crore. Just Modi's event management & PR costs more than life of 135 people."
It maybe be noted that on December 1, 2022, PIB's Fact Check unit dismissed the claim made in the tweet by putting a tweet on its official account stating that the claim was false and there was no such RTI reply in existence. Read PIB's tweet here:
Gokhale was detained on December 5 from Rajasthan and he was presented to the court of Magistrate on December 6, which remanded him to police custody till December 8.