[Hurting Religious Sentiments of Christians] Punjab & Haryana High Court Directs Punjab Police To Not Take Coercive Steps Against Ravenna Tandon, Farah Khan, Bharti Singh
(Judicial Quest News Network)
He Punjab & Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed the Punjab Police to not take any coercive steps against Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon, filmmaker Farah Khan, comedian Bharti Singh, Screen Play writer Abbas Aziz Dalal and Farms production in relation to the FIR lodged against them for the offence of hurting religious sentiments [Raveena Tandon V.State of Punjab]
Justice Karamjeet Singh issued notice to the State of Punjab in the plea seeking quashing of the FIR registered against the trio for their comments made during a web show titled as ‘Backbenchers ’released by Flipkart in 2019.
The direction was passed on their plea seeking quashing of the FIR registered U/S 295A of IPC.
The allegations against petitioners were that they hurt the religious sentiments of the Christian Community by comparing the word “Hallelujah” with a vulgar word, and disrespected it.
It is submitted by the petitioners that there is nothing to perceive that it was intended to hurt the religious sentiments of the Christian Community or remotely qualify to constitute on offence under section 295-A of the Indian Penal Code.
The words “Hurting the religious sentiments “occurring in section 295-A IPC are qualified by the words “Deliberate and malicious”. Thus to attract section 295-A IPC, the utterance must be “Deliberate and malicious “the conjunction “and” further qualifies that the utterances have to be both “deliberate and malicious”.
Appearing for the petitioners, Advocate Abhinav Sood contended that from the contents of FIR, none of the ingredients pertaining to the offence under section295-A IPC was made out. He further contended that the allegations made by Mr. Peter Masih were vague and general in nature with ulterior motive to fasten the criminal liability on the petitioners.
It was further argued by Sood that The Petitioners statements cannot be perceived to be disrespectful or hurtful to the sentiments of the Christian brothers or does not even remotely qualify to constitute offence under section 295A of 27 the Indian Penal Code A bare reading of the section makes it further clear that the offence is not made out since these statements were made without being aware of the word Hallelujah
Relying on the the Supreme Court of India in Ramji Lal 28 well tendered as their to His unconditional Eminence apologies Cardinal publicly Oswald as adequately Therefore nothing provided remains for the in contingencies the impugned to FIR avoid occurrence misunderstanding down Government in Bhagwati of reported any by Charan form way of the Shukla misrepresentation Notification Vs Provincial as under standards and The courageous vacillating acts of reasonable words minds means AIR must and 1947 strong minded be not judged those Naglfrom of stating weak rather nor of danger in every hostile point of those view who scent vs State of UP AIR 1957 SC 620 Ramji Lals dealt with the essentials of offence under the said section.
The Quashing petition was filed through Advocates Abhinav Sood, Garav Girish Shukla, Anmol Gupta & Dhruv Chowfla.
Notice of Motion for 5-12-2022, issued till then no coercive steps shall be taken against the petitioners
Jaspreet Kaur, AAG, Punjab accepted the notice on behalf of the state
[Read Order]
