Chandigarh, Jan. 13 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday stayed further proceedings in an FIR registered against four persons, including an RTI activist and three journalists, following a social media post on the use of the Punjab chief minister's helicopter. The HC also issued a notice of motion to Punjab for February 23. Justice Vinod S. Bhardwaj passed the interim order on a petition seeking the quashing of the FIR. According to the petition, the case originated from a social media post of one Manik Goyal, a law student and RTI activist. Goyal had raised questions about the movement of a helicopter allotted to the chief minister on December 8 last year, at a time when Bhagwant Mann was on an official visit to Japan. The petition stated that the information shared in the post was sourced from FlightRadar24, described as a lawful and publicly accessible flight-tracking platform. By entering the helicopter number, the petitioner said he observed that on December 8, the helicopter flew multiple times within Chandigarh, thereafter to Amritsar, proceeded to another location, and finally returned to Chandigarh. According to the petition, the post merely shared publicly available information and raised questions of transparency in the use of public resources. The matter, the petitioners contend, led to public discussion. Petitioners, journalists by profession, raised similar concerns on their media platforms, and the petitioner was also interviewed. Instead of responding to these issues, the state allegedly initiated criminal proceedings, the petition further said. htc...