The Supreme Court on Wednesday restrained the Manipur government from taking “any coercive action” till September 11 against Editors Guild of India president Seema Mustafa and three other senior journalists over two FIRs related to a report on the conflict in the state.

The BJP government in Manipur had booked the journalists for spreading hate, promoting enmity between communities and giving statements conducive to inciting violence after a fact-finding team from the Guild visited the strife-torn state and filed a report that observed that “there are clear indications that the leadership of the state became partisan during the conflict”.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, while issuing notice to the Manipur government on the petition filed by the Guild and the three journalists, posted the matter for further hearing on Monday.

“We direct that in the meantime no coercive step shall be taken in connection with the two FIRs registered against the petitioners,” the bench, which included Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra, said.

The court passed the interim direction following a plea by senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the journalists’ body, seeking urgent hearing of the appeal to stay any imminent arrest of the journalists on allegedly trumped-up charges.

When the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, the bench suggested that it would grant interim protection to the journalists for one week so that they could approach Manipur High Court for necessary relief.

Divan cited an earlier instance of the court directly entertaining a similar plea by advocate Deeksha Dwivedi, against whom the Manipur government had registered an FIR after a fact-finding committee of which she was a part, submitted a report on the violence. In July, the Supreme Court had granted her protection from arrest.

Divan said that in the Guild case, FIRs were registered following the submission of a fact-finding report on September 2 by the team of journalists who held extensive interactions with affected people. He added: “There was a small error in the report which was corrected immediately by us.”

The petitioners apprehended arrest, pointing to chief minister N. Biren Singh’s warning to the journalists at a media conference in Imphal, Divan said. Biren accused the journalists of meeting “some people, sections of the people and coming to a conclusion” and said: “That is why the state government has filed an FIR against the members of the Editors Guild who are trying to create more clashes in the state of Manipur...”

Cases were registered against the four journalists — Seema Mustafa, Seema Guha, Sanjay Kapoor and Bharat Bhushan — under IPC Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups, communities, etc), 298 (deliberately inciting religious feelings), 505 (statements conducive to public mischief) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).

Advocate Kannu Agarwal, appearing for the Manipur government, suggested that the petitioners be asked to approach the high court.

However, the bench decided to restrain the Manipur police from taking any action against the journalists till Monday, when it would take up the case for further hearing.