The Karnataka High Court on Thursday stayed a criminal case against Bharatiya Janata Party’s social media cell chief Amit Malviya and Republic TV’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami for falsely claiming that the Istanbul Congress Center is an office of the Indian National Congress, Bar and Bench reported.

The building shown in a Republic TV news segment on May 15 is the Istanbul Congress Center, a convention venue owned by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Alt News reported.

The Bengaluru Police had booked Malviya and Goswami on Tuesday on a complaint by the Indian Youth Congress’ legal cell head, Shrikant Swaroop BN. The first information report was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace.

The complainant alleged that the claim was made “with clear and undeniable criminal intent to deceive the Indian public, defame a major political institution, manipulate nationalist sentiments, incite public unrest, and undermine national security and democratic integrity”.

The Indian Youth Congress further noted that the claims were made in the context of tense India-Turkey relations due to Ankara’s support for Pakistan during heightened tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad after Operation Sindoor.

Although the Indian National Congress had announced plans in 2019 to open an overseas office in Istanbul and appointed Mohammad Yusuf Khan to lead it, there have been no updates since, and Turkey is not listed on the Indian Overseas Congress website, Alt News noted.

Republic TV said on Tuesday that the image was mistakenly used by a video editor on the digital desk due to a “technical error”.

The Congress, however, said that an apology was not sufficient as redressal for the error.

A separate case was also filed against Malviya for allegedly posting an image of a face, half of which was that of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and the other half of Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir, Bar and Bench reported.

It included a caption that purportedly alluded to whether Gandhi was echoing Pakistan’s narrative.

Malviya, who is the BJP’s social media cell chief, filed a petition to quash this case as well, according to Bar and Bench.

During the hearing on Thursday, advocate Aruna Shyam, representing Goswami, said that the Republic TV editor-in-chief had aired a programme on his channel where he had claimed that Turkey was against our national interest.

“Why does the political party have to have an office in that country?” Live Law quoted Shyam as saying. “That was his opinion expressed in a news channel.”

The advocate added that the same content was published online, “where inadvertently a picture was posted of the political parties office but that was not the actual picture of the party”. He said that a junior editor had posted it and that the news channel immediately issued a clarification.

“Absolutely there is no case made out,” Shyam told the court.

Also representing Malviya, Shyam said that the complaints against the BJP leader were politically motivated and baseless, Bar and Bench reported.

The advocate claimed that the complaint filed on Malviya’s post with an edited photo of Gandhi initially cited offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace. He added that this was a bailable offence.

However, this was later tampered with when the police approached the jurisdictional magistrate and an offence dealing with statements conducing to public mischief was added, Shyam alleged, adding that this was not a bailable offence.

“That is how politically, petitioners have been targeted,” Bar and Bench quoted Shyam as saying.

The counsel for the state government, however, told the court that Malviya and Goswami had only been served notices. The investigation should be allowed to proceed, he added.

“Let them cooperate with the investigation,” Bar and Bench quoted the counsel as saying. “We will see information has been disseminated, and what context.”

After the Congress announced that the case had been filed, Malviya posted a clip from the show on his social media once again and commented: “The FIR is for this video. Imagine.”