The journalist applied for passes to travel to Himachal during the Covid pandemic. (File)
The Himachal Pradesh High Court today ordered dismissing all charges against a journalist who conducted an 'expose' on the state government e-pass system during the Covid pandemic. Aman Bhardwaj, 26, had applied for two e-passes to enter the state - one for Amitabh Bachchan and the other for Donald Trump.
The passes were duly registered and emailed to the journalist. After the report aired on his channel 'Zee Punjab Haryana Himachal', the director of the state's information technology department, filed a police complaint against Mr Bhardwaj for forgery, cheating, and false warning.
The court today asked the police to drop all charges against the journalist stating that he did not commit any act with an intention to commit fraud.
"In the present case, petitioner did not commit any act with intention to defraud, but for a reality check and verifying the working of the system of online registration and generation of e-passes," the court observed.
Mr Bhardwaj had used his phone and Aadhaar number to register for both e-passes. The court observed that during verification, the authorities should have noticed that the identities and the Aadhaar numbers of the applicants did not match.
"It did not happen and requests for e-passes were not only registered but e-passes were also generated. Petitioner never intended to use nor used these e-passes for entering in Himachal Pradesh. He brought this lapse in the system to the notice of higher authorities," the court observed.