'How Can We Quash FIR At Behest Of Third Party?' : Supreme Court Refuses To Entertain PIL To Quash FIRs Over Posters Against Prime Minister

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed for the quashing of FIRs registered against individuals questioning the Union of India's vaccination policy.

Noting that allowing the petition filed by a third party to quash an FIR would set a bad precedent in criminal jurisprudence, a Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah allowed the Petitioner to withdraw the plea as well as granted him the liberty to approach for the adjudication of individual live cases.

"Don't file these kinds of PILs. How can we quash an FIR at the behest of a third party. We can contemplate if there is an individual member of a family approaching us. You withdraw this. This will set a wrong precedent in criminal law. Get a live case and then we will see", stated the Bench.

Accordingly, the plea was dismissed as withdrawn.

The plea had been filed by Advocate Pradeep Kumar Yadav and sought directions to the Police Commissioner of Delhi to not register further cases, FIRs against people who had published advertisements, posters and brochures wherein they were criticizing the vaccination policy either in public domain or on social media.

At the previous hearing, the Bench had directed the Counsel to produce details of such FIRs before the Court.

"Mr. Yadav, the problem is the nature of your reliefs. You want a general direction to stop registration of FIRs against those pasting or uploading posters casting a satire on vaccination policy. Prima facie we would have been with you, but get some cases before us. You have filed a general PIL", the Bench had said to the Counsel while directing him to produce the details of the FIRs.