Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan, who became the face of a national campaign for media freedom after being jailed on terror charges in Uttar Pradesh while on assignment, will no longer have to report weekly to a police station, the Supreme Court said on Monday.

One of the bail conditions imposed two years ago on Kappan, who now lives in his family home in Malappuram district, was that he must report to the local Vengara police station every Monday.

“The (court) order dated September 9, 2022, is modified and it shall not be necessary for the petitioner to report to the local police station…,” the bench of Justice P.S. Narasimha and Justice Sandeep Mehta said while dictatinga brief order.

It, however, refrained from passing any order on Kappan’s plea for the return of his passport. “The other prayer made in the present application can be agitated independently…,” the bench saidwithout elaborating.

The official order had not been uploaded on the top court’s website till late inthe evening.

Kappan, then working in Delhi, was arrested in Mathura in October 2020 while on his way to cover the rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Hathras, a caste atrocity in which the police’s role too had come under the scanner.

He was held in jail for 23 months on terror charges, accused of working for the (now banned) radical outfit People’s Front of India and of plotting to foment social unrestand violence.

While granting him bail on September 9, 2022, a three-judge apex court bench asked the Uttar Pradesh government several searching questions.

“Every person has the right to free expression. He (Kappan) is trying to show that the (Hathras) victim needs justice and (to) raise a common voice. Is that a crime in the eyes of the law?” it said.

The bench observed that there was nothing wrong in citizens resorting to protests and reminded the state that the stringent punishments for rape legislated by Parliament in 2013 were the outcome of public outrage against the December 2012 bus gang rape and murder in Delhi.

However, as part of his bail conditions, Kappan was asked to remain in Delhi for six weeks after his release and report to the Nizamuddin police station every Monday.

He would then be free to move to his native Malappuram in Kerala but must report to the local police station every Monday, the bail conditions said. He was asked to surrender his passport.

Monday’s judgment came on an appeal by Kappan against some of thebail conditions.