India, April 2 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday asked the petitioners in a public interest litigation (PIL) to apprise the court whether providing free copies of daily diary report (DDR) and other such documents is a sovereign function of the state.

The high court bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Sanjiv Berry was dealing with a PIL seeking quashing of the notification/policy whereby the Punjab Police had started imposing Rs.80 charge for downloading first information reports (FIRs) from the Saanjh portal and increase in the charges for other such facilities.

The government withdrew the notification regarding the FIR after political backlash. However, as per the petitioner counsels, the government is still c...