BBC rape documentary: Notice to Centre, city government on plea to quash FIR

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today issued notice to Union Home Ministry on an activist's plea seeking quashing of the FIR lodged against him for screening the controversial banned documentary 'India's Daughter'.

Justice Manmohan Singh also issued notices to the Delhi government, the Delhi Police Commissioner and Station House Officer of R K Puram police station here, on 21-year-old Ketan Dixit's plea seeking stay on the proceedings and investigation initiated against him after lodging of the case on March 12.

"Issue notice to the respondents," the court said.

The court notices were issued on the youth's plea who has also challenged his arrest by Delhi Police and said that he be compensated for the "unnecessary harassment".

"The present case is a fit case for the intervention of the high court. The petitioner (Dixit) has already suffered unnecessary harassment at the hands of Delhi Police due to the registration of a false and frivolous FIR and illegal detention.

"It is necessary in the interest of justice that the same be quashed as whatever is alleged of the petitioner to have committed was based on goodwill and awareness promotion in the society," the petitioner's counsel told the court.

The documentary by filmmaker Leslee Udwin, based on the December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi, was screened in village Awalkheda near Agra on March 8.

After the telecast, Uttar Pradesh Police called Dixit for questioning. His laptop, pen drive and projector were seized, but he was let off after five hours, the plea said.

Four days later, the film was screened at Delhi's Ravidas camp where three of the five men convicted in the case lived. An FIR was registered in the case immediately.