Abhishek Upadhyay, the journalist who reported embezzlement of donations at Ayodhya’s Ram temple, on Tuesday sought Supreme Court’s intervention saying that Ghaziabad police have, in connection with a case of road rage against him, sought his digital footprints from social media platform X since June 1, which could jeopardise identities of sources who tipped him about the donation scam.His counsel Anoop P Awasthi told a bench led by CJI Surya Kant that Ghaziabad police’s request to X HQ in California for the alleged road rage case of Aug 18 would result in gross violation of his right to privacy, adding that such data in the hands of police would reveal the identities of the sources who informed him about temple theft.The FIR concerns an alleged incident of Aug 18, yet the investigating agency seeks the petitioner’s IP and account-related information from June 1, well before the alleged incident. No nexus between such sweeping historical digital information and the investigation of the alleged incident has been disclosed in the impugned notice,” Upadhyay said in his application.The bench said it had on Aug 25 protected the journalist from coercive action by police in the road rage case and that his fresh application would be listed for hearing in due course.
