Sulli Deals Case: SC Asks States to Respond to Plea of Accused to Club FIRs

Since there were distinct cases against Aumkareshwar Thakur, the court questioned whether they could be clubbed.

Sulli Deals accused Aumkareshwar Thakur.

(Photo: The Quint)

The Supreme Court on Friday, 12 August, agreed to consider the petition of 'Sulli Deals' accused Aumkareshwar Thakur, seeking to club multiple First Information Reports (FIRs) against him into a single probe.

The bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh also sought responses from the state governments of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra in this regard, Bar and Bench reported.

Sulli deals was an app on Github in which pictures of more than 100 Muslim women were uploaded with the accompanying text: "deal of the day".

The case had drawn widespread outrage across the country after it came to light in July 2021.

'Thakur Accused for Different Offences, Can They Be Clubbed?': Court Asks

The court, however, wondered whether the plea could be allowed since the accused was charged for different offences for different acts, and in relation to two apps, namely Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai.

"There are different offences. One is Sulli Deals and another is Bulli Bai. Can different offences be clubbed? You have uploaded photos of various people and each is aggrieved party," Justice Kaul said.

The court also observed that each woman whose picture was uploaded for "auctioning" on the app is an "aggrieved party."

The bench eventually issued notice but did not stay the probe.

A Delhi court had granted bail to Thakur in the case in March this year along with Bulli Bai founder Niraj Bishnoi.

Thakur, who has done his BCA from IPS Academy, was arrested by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Special Cell, Delhi Police, last year.

DCP (IFSO) KPS Malhotra told The Quint, "Thakur had joined a group on Twitter by the name of TradMahaSabha in January 2020 using the Twitter handle @gangescion. During various group discussions, the members had discussed about trolling and defaming Muslim women."

He added that Thakur "had developed the code/app on GitHub. After the uproar regarding the Sulli Deals app, he deleted his social media footprint."

(With inputs from Bar and Bench.)