On October 29, 2022, Delhi police registered an FIR against leftist portal The Wire on a complaint filed by BJP leader Amit Malviya for the fake Meta story that has been retracted. Earlier today, Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya filed a criminal complaint against The Wire and its editorial team for their now-withdrawn Meta reports against him. The complaint was filed with The Special Commissioner of Police – Crime, of the Delhi Police. Amit Malviya has said The Wire falsified papers in an effort to slander and damage his reputation.
Amit Malviya files criminal complaint against The Wire. pic.twitter.com/CzH81iyVmg
— Abhijit Majumder (@abhijitmajumder) October 29, 2022
Apart from the left-wing portal The Wire, Amit Malviya has named its founder editors Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia and MK Venu, and Deputy Editor Jahnavi Sen, as accused in the complaint. Apart from this, the complaint has also been filed against unknown persons. Jahnavi Sen had written the report on 10th October claiming that Amit Malviya has been given Xcheck privilege to remove content from Instagram.
Interestingly, Amit Malviya has not named Devesh Kumar in the complaint, who was The Wire’s tech expert in both the Meta and Tek Fog stories, and who has been blamed by The Wire for the fake reports accusing him of misleading him.
In his complaint addressed to the special commissioner of police (crime) Delhi, Amit Malviya said, “I am filing the present complaint against The Wire – an online news portal, Mr. Siddharth Varadarajan Founding Editor of The Wire, Mr. Sidharth Bhatia Founding Editor of The Wire, Mr. MK Venu Founding Editor of The Wire, Ms. Jahnavi Sen -the Deputy Editor and Executive News Producer at The Wire, Foundation for Independent Journalism the company that owns and publishes The Wire and other unknown persons. I am filing the present complaint for the offences of cheating, forgery for the purpose of cheating, forgery for the purpose of harming the reputation, using as genuine a forged document or electronic record, and defamation amongst other provisions of IPC.”
Amit Malviya added, “I say that this is not the first time that the Accused has published fake news. Recently, the Accused published a story on Tek Fog about a ‘superhuman app’ used by the BJP for SM interception. The said story was used by various national and international media to downgrade India and the thriving democracy of our country. However, subsequently, the Tek Fog story was taken down but The Wire as it was found to be false and fabricated, just as in the present case.”
Citing various evidence that emerged in the case that proved that The Wire had fabricated several emails and other documents to establish its allegation against Malviya, he said in the complaint, “it is evident that the Accused along with other unknown persons, maliciously fabricated internal emails of Meta so as to vindictively prove their point in order to cause reputational damage to the BJP and myself.”
He noted that after the Meta story was found to be fake, Wire issued an apology to its readers, but is yet to apologise to him. “Shockingly, until date the accused persons have refrained from issuing an apology addressed to me. This is even despite the fact that their reports and fabricated material have maligned and tarnished my reputation,” he wrote.
“It is apparent that Accused along with other unknown persons entered into a conspiracy with the criminal intention to malign and tarnish my reputation and correspondingly belittle and tarnish the reputation of the BJP. As a part of the conspiracy, the Accused also fabricated and forged internal emails of a private limited company with a dishonest and fraudulent intention to hoodwink their readers and the public at large,” Malviya has written in the complaint.
He also said that The Wire is cheating its readers and subscribers, and raising donations from the public even after its reports were proven to be fake. He further mentioned that the Meta story was not the first fake story by The Wire, as they also published a story on ‘Tek Fog’ about a ‘superhuman app’ used by the BJP for SM interception. “The said story was used by various national and international media to downgrade India and the thriving democracy of our country. However, subsequently, the ‘Tek Fog’ story was taken down but The Wire as it was found to be false and fabricated, just as in the present case.” he said.
He concluded with a demand that said, “In light of the above I urge you to register an FIR against the Accused, i.e., The Wire, Mr. Siddharth Varadarajan, Mr. Sidharth Bhatia, Mr. MK Venu – the Editor of The Wire, Ms. Jahnavi Sen the Deputy Editor and Executive News Producer and Foundation for Independent Journalism and other unknown persons for the offenses punishable u/s 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 469 (Forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record.), 500 (Punishment for Defamation) r/w 120B and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.”
On October 28, that is, a day after BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya said that he will initiate criminal and civil proceedings against The Wire for their fake XCheck Meta story targeting him and BJP, Malviya had said that he will now lodge an FIR against the leftist propaganda portal. In a statement issued on Twitter on October 28, Malviya said that he will lodge the FIR against Wire and its management and reporters at the concerned police station.
Media read out on The Wire… pic.twitter.com/aETSkJZIpe
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) October 28, 2022
Amit Malviya said that he will file the FIR under sections that deal with forgery, forgery for the purposes of cheating, forgery to harm reputation, defamation, cheating, and criminal conspiracy, among others. Apart from this, he will also initiate civil proceedings for damage caused to him by The Wire and its associates. Accordingly, he has now filed a criminal complaint.
BJP IT Cell Head Amit Malviya files a criminal complaint against THE WIRE over their now withdrawn Meta reports against him. BJP IT Cell Head Amit Malviya has also alleged THE WIRE forged documents with a view to malign and tarnish his reputation.#TheWire @amitmalviya pic.twitter.com/iKYrwMDocf
— Jan Ki Baat (@jankibaat1) October 29, 2022
Opening up about the issue for the first time after Wire published the stories alleging that he was given a special privilege by Meta to take down content on Instagram and post content without any moderation, Malviya said that it is clear that The Wire and some unknown persons entered into a criminal conspiracy with the intent to malign and tarnish his reputation.
He said that The Wire deliberately inserted his name into the story about Instagram taking down an image minutes after it was uploaded due to an algorithm falsely flagging the image for nudity, and then fabricated evidence to implicate him. It is notable that the account where the image was private, had very few followers, and was not followed by Malviya. The operators of the account themselves had blamed faulty AI on Instagram for taking down the image, and the initial Wire report had reported exactly that.
But in a follow-up report, The Wire claimed that it was taken down by Amit Malviya, claiming that he has been given ‘XCheck’ special privileges by Instagram owner Meta to take down content and post any content he wants. After Meta had denied the claims made in the story, Wire produced the screenshot of a purported email from Meta official Andy Stone to his team that seemed to show that the allegations were true.
But Andy Stone denied writing that email and said it was fake. Even before Stone had issued the denial, social media users had pointed out evidence in the screenshot that proved that it was fake, including language not typically used by Americans. After that, Wire produced more screenshots from two independent experts, including a Microsoft official, which claimed that they have verified the email Stone to be true.
But the entire story fell apart after both experts denied that they had verified the email, and said that screenshots of their emails published by Wire were fake. After this, The Wire was forced to retract the stories and announced a review of the episode. The portal also took down its earlier stories on Tek Fog, where they had made similar claims of BJP having an app with superpowers to manipulate social media platforms.
Wire has also issued an apology to its readers, but is yet to apologize to Meta, Amit Malviya, and others who were dragged into their fake story.
