Famous YouTuber and Bigg Boss OTT winner Elvish Yadav has got a big relief from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the country rejected the case to snake venom registered against Elvish Yadav. This case was to a rave party organized in Noida (Uttar Pradesh), in which snake venom was allegedly used. This case was registered against the YouTuber in November 2023 and he was arrested on March 17, 2024.
A division bench of Justice MM Sundaresh and Justice N Kotishwar Singh dismissed the snake poison case registered against him in Noida (Uttar Pradesh). The court said the case could not be legally sustained as the complaint under the Wildlife (Protection) Act was not filed by an authorized person. The court also clarified that the charges against Yadav under sections of the Indian Penal Code in the FIR were based on an earlier FIR registered in Gurugram, in which a ‘closure report’ had already been filed.
A division bench of Justices MM Sundaresh and N Kotishwar Singh said that the provisions of the NDPS Act invoked against Yadav in the FIR were not applicable as the fluid (anti-venom) recovered from the co-accused did not fall under the controlled substance mentioned in the schedule. The court cited earlier judgments in its decision and said that the case against Yadav cannot be sustained legally, hence the FIR and all subsequent proceedings are quashed. This also includes filing of charge sheet and cognizance order of the lower court.
During the hearing, the bench also gave him strict advice. Justice MM Sundresh and Justice N Kotishwar Singh told Yadav’s lawyer, “If celebrities start using ‘dumb’ creatures like snakes, it will send a very bad message to the society. You are playing with snakes.” The court further said, “Can you go to the zoo and play with the animals there? Will it not amount to a crime? You cannot say that you will do whatever you want. We are concerned about the seriousness of the complaint under the Wildlife (Protection) Act.”
What did Elvish Yadav and UP government say?
Senior advocate Mukta Gupta, appearing for Yadav, argued in the court that YouTuber Elvish Yadav had gone to a party as a guest in a video of singer Fazilpuriya and no evidence of any rave party or consumption of any scheduled drug was found there. Gupta stressed that Yadav was not present at the alleged spot and the medical reports on record proved that the nine snakes examined were not poisonous. The counsel appearing for the state claimed that the police rescued nine snakes, including five cobras, and detected the venom of a snake suspected to be used in rave parties.
The Supreme Court asked the state counsel in this case how snake venom is extracted and how it is used in rave parties. The court noted that the charge sheet mentioned consumption of snake venom for entertainment by people, including foreigners, at rave parties. Yadav’s lawyer argued in the Supreme Court that no snake, drug or psychoactive substance was recovered from him and no concrete connection was found between the applicant and the co-accused. The Supreme Court quashed the FIR and all lower court actions on this basis. However, the court warned Yadav against public display with snakes, so that in future such incidents do not send a wrong message to the society. On August 6 last year also, the Supreme Court had stayed any action against Yadav in the lower court.
