False: The image shows Supreme Court Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala having lunch with Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy.

By: Ranjini K
July 8 2022

Share Article:

Context: 

BJP's ex-spokesperson Nupur Sharma appealed to the Supreme Court (SC) of India to merge the First Information Reports (FIR) lodged against her in various states for remarks she made about the Prophet Muhammad. On July 1, the Supreme Court division bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice JB Pardiwala assessed Sharma's case and rejected her plea. The decision was widely condemned online, and many false and misleading images have circulated about the Supreme Court judges on social media. One such image was posted with the caption "The 2 SC judges, Surya Kant and Pardiwala with the Naxal gang. Pranab Roy is there. Then there is Radhika Roy, Brinda Karat, and some others. See, with whom the so-called Supreme court judges who passed verdict and made inflammatory comments are having lunch with". However, this is false. There is no evidence that Supreme Court Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala had lunch with Pranab Roy and Radhika Roy.

In fact:

We conducted a reverse image search and found the same picture from Dipali Sikand, the founder of Les Concierges and Club Concierge and MindEscapes firms, Linkedin account on July 3, 2022. The caption reads, "Great Minds Meet @MindEscapes this afternoon. Dr. Thiagarajan, Mrs and Mr Prannoy Roy, Mrs and Mr N Ram, and Mrs and Mr P Karat." Dipali Sikand is also in the viral image.

The MindEscapes official Twitter account also posted the same image on July 3, 2022, with the caption, 

"A Chef's Table session with Finance Minister - Tamil Nadu, Mr. P. Thiagarajan, Dr. Prannoy Roy and Mrs. Radhika Roy, Mrs. Brinda Karat and Mr. Prakash Karat, Mrs. and Mr. N. Ram and Dipali Sikand."

Ram Narasimhan, an Indian Journalist, also clarified that the people in question attending the lunch were himself, referred to as N Ram, Tamil Nadu's Finance Minister P Thiagarajan, Prannoy Roy, and Radhika Roy. The lunch was held in Ketti near Ooty. 

In addition, the pictures of Honourable Justice Surya Kanth and Honourable Justice JB Pardiwala, shown on the Supreme Court of India website, do not match the images of the people in the viral post.

The verdict: 

Tamil Nadu Finance Minister P Thiagarajan and Ram Narasimhan were misidentified as Supreme Court Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala. The Supreme Court Justices are not pictured and did not attend the lunch. Hence, we have marked this claim as false.