PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa on Friday quashed and set aside the FIR that was lodged against members of the band ‘Dastaan Live’ who were arrested by the Panaji Police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments for singing a song that according to a complaint filed amounted to hurting religious sentiments.
The High Court came down heavily on the Panaji Police for not only registering the complaint literally the same minute that it was filed, but also for arresting the members of the band through deceit by calling them to the police station.
“The police authorities cannot call citizens to the police station and demand apologies of this nature. As if that was not sufficient, the police placed some of the petitioners under arrest in the late evening of 18.12.2019, thereby forcing them to seek bail. We think that there was no justification whatsoever for arresting the petitioners who were the members of this band and who have been making such presentations all over the Country, unhindered and unmolested. The Supreme Court has laid down guidelines, which, according to us, were completely ignored by the police authorities.
“There was no justification whatsoever for the Police Inspector to hurriedly register such an FIR, possibly without even going into the complaint or for that matter the provisions of Section 295-A of the IPC (hurting religious sentiments). The Police authorities are expected to be quite sensitive in such matters, because what is at stake is the freedom of speech and expression. Therefore, unless the complaint discloses the ingredients of the offense under section 295-A of IPC, it is not expected of the police authorities to rush and register an FIR in such cases. In any case, there was no justification whatsoever to call some of the petitioners to the police station and require them to apologize or to arrest some of the Petitioners, no sooner the FIR was registered,” the High Court said.
“Based on a frivolous complaint, some of the petitioners, who were only members of a band were incarcerated or forced to seek anticipatory bail,” the High Court bench of M S Jawalkar and M S Sonak, said.
“The police authorities were neither justified in registering the FIR nor arresting any of the petitioners if the complaint which is the basis for the FIR is perused, it is apparent that the complainant has adverted to only one small portion of the composition and by interpreting the same or rather misinterpreting the same, made the following vague allegations, which, according to us, do not even remotely constitute the ingredients of Section 295-A of the IPC (hurting religious sentiments),” the High Court said.
Nine members of the band ‘Dastaan Live’ all residents of Delhi, who had performed at the Serendipity Festival for Arts held in the state capital in December 2019, filed the petition seeking quashing of the charges against them.
“The police authorities registered the FIR, literally the minute the same was lodged, perhaps, without even bothering to either read the complaint or the provisions of section 295-A of the IPC,” the High Court said.
A complainant by the name K Venkat Krishna had filed a complaint with the Panaji Police alleging that he found “a narrative being set up against the government in power and trying to play the victim card.”
“As opinion maker myself I felt they were opining on the government but to my surprise they began chanting ‘OM’ a symbol of my faith in negative narrative and ultimately abusing people chanting the OM and following to Hindu stream has Ullu ke patta. They abuse the practice by words with pictures of different walks of life and what they have said and done was blasphemy of my religion and sentiment of hundred crores of India and few million abroad,” Krishna said in his complaint.
In response, however, the band said they were only singing a poem “Mantra Kavita” by Vaidyanath Misra (widely known as Baba Nagarjun) a highly acclaimed poet who has received two Sahitya Akademi Awards from the Government of India, which was originally composed in 1969 “and even the lyrics were not modified by them, in the least.”
On the next day of their performance, some of them -- Anirban Ghosh, Sumant Balkrishnan, Shiva Pathak, and Nirmala Ravindran were called to the Panaji Police Station and were informed that some person had complained about their band. They were informed that they were called to the Police Station to issue an apology.
Four persons, including two women, reported to the Police Station, intending to cooperate with the Police. The Police, however, placed these four persons including the two women under arrest, informing them that an offense under section 295-A of the IPC r/w section 34 of the IPC was registered against them based on a complaint lodged by one K. Venkat Krishna.
The arrested persons were eventually released on bail and the petitioners who were yet to be arrested secured anticipatory bail.
The High Court stopped short of imposing costs on the Panaji police while expressing hope that they will not repeat such behaviour in the future.
