The Supreme Court on Monday stayed criminal proceedings initiated against researcher Sanjay Kumar for an erroneous claim that he had made in a social media post and subsequently retracted about voter numbers in Maharashtra, the Hindustan Times reported.

A bench comprising Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice NV Anjaria granted interim relief to Kumar, a psephologist with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, on his petition to quash the first information reports registered against him, Bar and Bench reported.

During the hearing, Kumar’s counsel told the court that he is a person with impeccable integrity.

“Thirty years of service to the nation and to the world,” Bar and Bench quoted his counsel as saying. “He [Kumar] is highly respected. It was a mistake. He apologised. He deleted and apologised publicly. After that, an FIR.”

The bench also noted that the psephologist had withdrawn the social media post. “By an ad-interim order, there shall be stay of further proceedings,” the Hindustan Times quoted the court as saying.

“Normally we would not entertain it,” the bench added. “But we will issue a notice.”

Two FIRs were filed by the police in Maharashtra’s Nagpur and Nashik on Wednesday against Kumar for the erroneous claim about voter numbers in the state.

The FIR in Nagpur was filed under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita about making false statements about an election, statements conducing to public mischief, furnishing false information to public servants and creating a false electronic record.

The Nashik district election office stated in a social media post that Kumar had posted “misleading information of voters” of the Deolali Assembly constituency, due to which a case was registered against him.

Kumar is a professor and co-director of Lokniti, a research programme at the Centre for the Study for Developing Societies.

He had claimed on August 17 that two Assembly constituencies in Maharashtra – Ramtek and Deolali – had witnessed a significant drop in the number of voters between the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the Assembly election held later that year.

In a social media post, which was later removed, Kumar claimed that there had been a 38.4% drop in Ramtek and a 36.8% drop in Deolali. The post included specific figures, citing a decrease of around 1.7 lakh voters in each constituency.

On August 19, Kumar deleted the post, attributing the error to a data misreading by his team. He apologised, saying that he had “no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation”.

In Ramtek, Congress candidate Shyamkumar Barve won the Lok Sabha seat with more than 48% of the votes. Six months later, the Shiv Sena’s Ashish Jaiswal won the Ramtek Assembly segment with more than 52%.

In Deolali, a segment of the Nashik Lok Sabha constituency, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) won in the general election but finished third in the Assembly polls.

But in two other assemblies, Nashik West and Hingna, the electorate increased by more than 40%.

The controversy escalated into a political row amid allegations by Opposition parties about electoral fraud in the country. The Bharatiya Janata Party accused Congress leaders of using Kumar’s erroneous data to spread misinformation about the electoral process.

Also read: FIRs filed against psephologist Sanjay Kumar but claims about voter roll errors remain unaddressed

📰 Crime Today News is proudly sponsored by DRYFRUIT & CO – A Brand by eFabby Global LLC

Design & Developed by Yes Mom Hosting