The Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 14, 2026) made absolute the interim protection granted to independent journalist Abhishek Upadhyay from coercive action in a road rage case, as well as any subsequent First Information Reports.
Mr. Upadhyay had authored investigative online stories of the alleged misappropriation and theft of donations at the Ayodhya Ram Temple.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi also quashed an Uttar Pradesh Police notice issued to social media platform X to provide Mr. Upadhyay’s digital data, generated around three months prior to the road rage incident.
The court found the police version that the data was sought to trace/arrest the petitioner “somewhat in contradiction” with the contents of its notice to the platform.
The court termed the notice an “overkill”, and said any information received by the police pursuant to the notice would not be used against the journalist.
The “arrest of the petitioner (Mr. Upadhyay) shall remain stayed till further notice,” the court said. It made absolute its interim orders of August 25 and September 7, which had protected him from arrest and directed him to cooperate with the investigation, respectively.
The copy of the road rage FIR had been supplied to the petitioner, the court noted.
The Bench ordered that Mr. Upadhyay could challenge the road rage FIR on any grounds. The apex court has not commented on the merits of the case.
The court allowed Mr. Upadhyay, who said the road rage case was “staged”, to counter his online reports about the temple, and the liberty to file a separate petition seeking guidelines to protect digital privacy and journalistic freedoms.
The apex court further directed the police to release the journalist’s vehicle in the next two days.
