Free speech is not negotiable

There is a message for the political class in the apex court's reiteration of the constitutional right

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The Supreme Court Friday reiterated that the right to free speech is non-negotiable. The two-judge bench, while quashing an FIR against a Congress MP booked for tweeting a poem, said that police officials are "bound to honour and uphold freedom of speech and expression conferred on all citizens". Citing a procedural safeguard in BNSS, the new criminal procedure code, the court said the police must conduct a preliminary inquiry before registering an FIR in cases involving "spoken or written words".