The Editors Guild of India on Friday expressed concern about the misuse of criminal defamation laws against journalists after the Jharkhand Police booked the chief editor and two others associated with the Hindi newspaper Prabhat Khabar for their report on some members of the state’s liquor mafia.

The Jharkhand Police have booked chief editor of Prabhat Khabar Ashutosh Chaturvedi, Resident Editor Vijay Kant Pathak and the organisation’s Managing Director Rajeev Jhawar under sections 469 (forgery), 501 (printing defamatory statements) and 502 (selling prints that carry defamatory statements) of the Indian Penal Code.

The first information report was registered based on the complaint by a man Jogendra Tiwari, who is in Ranchi jail on charges of money laundering.

The complaint was filed after Prabhat Khabar published a report on December 28 on alleged crimes by Tiwari as listed in the chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate.

A day after the report was published by the newspaper, Tiwari had allegedly made threat calls to Chaturvedi. On December 30, the Editors Guild of India had raised concern over the incident. The Editors Guild had also written to the Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, the state’s chief secretary, the home secretary and the directorate general of police, to initiate an inquiry into the matter.

Chaturvedi had also filed a complaint to the police and the matter was sent to the Crime Investigation Department, Newslaundry reported.

On Friday, the press body said that the first information report against the Prabhat Khabar editors was another effort to harass journalists for doing their job.

“The guild reiterates its earlier demands and urges the state government and the police to complete the investigation into earlier complaint of Mr Chaturvedi,” the press body said in a statement. “The guild also expresses its deep concern on the misuse of criminal defamation laws against journalists in an effort to intimidate and harass them.”

It said that it has been a long-standing demand of the guild that criminal defamation law be scrapped, and such matters be left to be adjudicated in the civil domain.