Is chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ against the law or hate speech in India? In a weird case, Karnataka Police had booked 5 males in June this yr for selling enmity by chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. Nonetheless, the Karnataka Excessive Court docket has now quashed the FIR saying that chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ does not come below hate-speech. The Karnataka Excessive Court docket made the observations whereas quashing a primary info report (FIR) registered in opposition to 5 males below Part 153A of Indian Penal Code (IPC).
What Is The Case?
The incident is expounded to June this yr when 5 males had been getting back from an occasion celebrating the oath ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They had been attacked by a bunch of people that assaulted and stabbed them for chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. The incident happened on June 9. Nonetheless, when the victims approached the Police, the Karnataka Police registered an FIR in opposition to the complainants below a number of provisions of the IPC, together with Part 153A which penalises selling enmity between completely different teams on grounds of faith, race and hometown. The police stated that the FIR was registered following a grievance made by a Muslim man who alleged that the petitioners had threatened him. Karnataka is being dominated by Siddaramaiah-led Congress authorities.
What Excessive Court docket Mentioned
Justice M Nagaprasanna not solely granted reduction to the 5 accused but in addition stated that not a single ingredient of Part 153A was met within the case. “Within the gentle of the afore-narrated details and the judgments extracted supra, allowing even investigation into the case at hand could be prima facie allowing investigation into the sloganeering of Bharath Matha Ki Jai inter alia, which may by no stretch of creativeness be selling disharmony or enmity amongst religions,” the Court docket stated.
Justice Nagaprasanna stated that this was a case of a counterblast to the grievance that had been registered by the petitioners, reported Bar and Bench.
