The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the arrest of ABP News channel journalist Jagvinder Patial, who had last year done a telephone interview of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, lodged in a Punjab prison.

The court, however, expressed “serious concern” over the action.

“The fact that it can happen within a jail is a very serious matter. The fact remains that you gained access to the jail and published an interview on the TV channel. Whose permission did you take? We see the broader point of 19(1)(a)... (fundamental right to free speech) but there are restrictions by virtue of incarceration of the person…,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud told senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for the channel and the journalist.

The bench wondered whether the protection under Article 19(1) (a) could be extended to say that even prison rules can be breached for an interview. “Can you do that?” Justice Chandrachud asked Rohatgi.

Assailing the Punjab and Haryana High Court order of December 2023 directing an SIT probe into the interview, Rohatgi submitted: “…The high court order has a chilling effect on free speech. This is investigative journalism and nothing else. The journalist knows that phones are readily available in jails. He used his sources and conducted the interview.”