The Karnataka High Court on Thursday stayed an FIR registered against Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya over their comments on Congress office in Türkiye. Vacation judge Justice S Rachaiah passed the interim order while hearing the plea filed by them seeking to quash the FIR filed on a complaint by Congress party.
The FIR was registered at High Grounds police station under sections 192 (provocation with intent to cause riot) and 352 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The complaint was lodged by the Legal Cell of the Indian Youth Congress on 20 May, 2025. The complaint was filed claiming that Malviya and Republic TV wrongly portrayed the Istanbul Congress Centre in Turkey as the office of Indian National Congress.
Notably, they didn’t deny the reports that the party has an office in Türkiye. They only claimed that depicting the Istanbul Congress Centre as the party’s office was defamatory. The complaint by the party accused Malviya and Goswami of orchestrating a “criminally motivated campaign” to spread false claims that the Istanbul Congress Centre in Türkiye is the international office of the Indian National Congress (INC).
Appearing for Arnab Goswami, Senior Advocate Arun Shyam said that the senior journalist had aired a program on his TV channel questioning why Congress has an office in Türkiye, as the country is working against India’s interest. The counsel said that a junior editor mistakenly used the photo of Istanbul Congress Centre when the report was posted on the channel’s website. He added that the photo was published by oversight and it was immediately clarified.
