Allahabad High Court has castigated Uttar Pradesh police for “falling standard” over a “careless” affidavit filed by a senior officer in a case relating to an FIR against a journalist.

Freelance journalist Vineet Narain and two others had been booked under 14 penal code sections on June 20 after Narain wrote a social media post accusing a brother of a senior VHP leader of land-grabbing in Bijnore.

The June 19 post said Sanjay Bansal, brother of VHP vice-president and Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai, had grabbed 20,000sqm from a cowshed run by social worker Alka Lahoti.

Bansal complained to the police, dubbing the social media post a “conspiracy” and “a lie”. The police gave a clean chit to Bansal and booked Narain, Lahoti and Rajnish — a friend of the journalist who had allegedly visited the cowshed with him — for offences such as creating hatred on the basis of religion, cooking evidence, cheating and trespassing.

While hearing Narain’s petition seeking quashing of the case on July 28, the bench of Justices Surya Prakash Kesarwani and Piyush Agrawal issued a notice to Bijnore SP Dharmveer Singh, asking him to file an affidavit saying whether the charges against Narain were justifiable.

On reading the affidavit, the bench said on Thursday: “A notarised affidavit of superintendent of police, respondent No. 2, alleging it to be a counter affidavit, without disclosing even name of the deponent (SP) and without any swearing clause, in a most careless manner, has been filed today, which, prima facie, indicates falling standard in police department, particularly amongst its higher officers.”

It added: “The conduct of respondent No. 2 is, prima facie, condemnable.”

The observations were uploaded on the high court website on Friday. The hearing will continue.