The Supreme Court on Saturday said that a person’s fundamental right to reside and to move about freely anywhere in India cannot be refused on “flimsy grounds”, Live Law reported.

The bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and V Balasubramanian was hearing an externment order, issued by a deputy commissioner of police in Maharashtra against journalist Rahmat Khan. The order prohibited Khan from entering Maharashtra’s Amravati city for a year.

“A person cannot be denied his fundamental right to reside anywhere in the country or to move freely throughout the country, on flimsy grounds,” the bench said.

Khan had filed several queries under the Right to Information Act against misappropriation of public funds and government grants at the madrassas in Amravati.

On October 13, 2017, he had requested the district collector and the police to investigate the matter, and even filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay High Court.

However, first information reports were filed against Khan, alleging that the journalist was extorting money under the pretext of threatening to expose the activities of the madrassas.

Following the accusations, an externment order was issued under Section 56(1)(a)(b) of the Maharashtra Police Act. The section provides for the removal of individuals from an area, if the authorities suspect that they may commit an offence, according to Live Law.

The court said that the FIRs against Khan were filed because of his complaints and described them as “vindictive and retaliatory”. The bench added that the cases were also an attempt to teach the journalist a lesson and to “stifle his voice”.

“The deplorable allegation of demand for ransom by threat, prima facie, appears to have been concocted to give the complaint a colour of intense gravity,” the court said, according to Live Law.

The judges also clarified that sections 56 to 59 of the Maharashtra Police Act particularly applied to the elements of society that cannot be punished by penal action after judicial trial.

“An externment order may sometimes be necessary for maintenance of law and order,” the court said. “However, the drastic action of externment should only be taken in exceptional cases, to maintain law and order in a locality and/or prevent breach of public tranquillity and peace.”

An externment order should not have been issued even if the allegations against Khan were true, the Supreme Court said.

“The threat to lodge a complaint cannot possibly be a ground for passing an order of 18 externment under Section 56 of the Maharashtra Police Act, 19561, more so, when the responses of government authorities to queries raised by the Appellant under the Right to Information Act clearly indicate that the complaints are not frivolous ones,” the court said.

The complainants, according to the judges, had no reason to be concerned about Khan’s alleged threats if they had not indulged in any illegal activities.