In a recent ruling, the Karnataka High Court said that chanting Bharat Mata ki Jai slogans can never foment discord rather the slogan would only lead to harmony in the country. The single judge bench of Justice K Nagaprasanna made this observation while accepting the plea moved by five Hindu men identified as Suresh, Vinay, Ranjan, Dhananjay and Subhas seeking the quashing of FIR filed against them by Karnataka Police accusing them of allegedly promoting communal enmity and disrupting harmony among different religious groups.
The petitioners, who are residents of the Ulal taluka stated that on the 9th of June, as they returned from celebrating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath ceremony, they were attacked by 25 people. The petitioners claimed that the attackers asked them about how they could raise “slogans of Bharath Matha Ki Jai”; one of the 25 individuals allegedly stabbed two of the petitioners. The petitioners informed the court that the same night they filed a complaint against the attackers, an FIR was registered against the petitioners under several provisions of the IPC, including Section 153A. Notably, Section 153A penalises promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race and place of birth. This FIR was lodged on the complaint of a Muslim man who accused the petitioners of ‘threatening’ him.
While quashing the FIR on the 20th of September, the High Court said: “In the light of the afore-narrated facts and the judgments extracted supra, permitting even investigation into the case at hand would be prima facie permitting investigation into the sloganeering of Bharath Matha Ki Jai inter alia, which can by no stretch of imagination be promoting disharmony or enmity amongst religions.”
During the hearing, Justice Nagaprasanna deemed the FIR filed against the petitioners as a counterblast to the complaint filed by them. Justice Nagaprasanna went on to say that the case did not meet any of the Section 153A provisions.
“Section 153A makes it an offence if enmity is promoted between different groups of religion. The present case is a classic illustration of misuse of Section 153A of the IPC. It is a case of counterblast to a complaint registered by these petitioners. The defence is that the petitioners were shouting Bharath Matha Ki Jai and praising the Prime Minister of the nation. The allegation by the complainant does not even refer to any of those things,” the High Court said.
“To protect the skin of the complainant and others, the skin of the petitioners is sought to be ripped off. It does not meet even a single ingredient of Section 153A of the IPC. A pure case of counterblast is sought to be projected as a crime under Section 153A of the IPC. The ingredients that are necessary to bring home the complaint under Section 153A need not detain this Court for long or delve deep into the matter,” Justice Nagaprasanna continued.
