The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted interim bail to Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, arrested for his social media posts on Operation Sindoor, but refused to stay the investigation against him, terming his statements “dog whistling”.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh refused to quash the two FIRs registered against Mahmudabad by the Haryana police and barred him from posting anything relating to Operation Sindoor.
The apex court also directed the constitution of a three-member special investigation team headed by an inspector-general-rank officer within 24 hours to investigate the case. The remaining two members, of whom one should be a woman, will be officers of the rank of superintendent of police and above.
Referring to news reports of students and faculty members of Ashoka University planning to stage a protest over Mahmudabad’s arrest, the bench said: “If they dare do anything, we will not accept it…. We know how to deal with these people as they are all within our jurisdiction.”
The bench was dealing with Mahmudabad’s petition challenging his arrest for his Facebook post in which he had contrasted the “optics” of having Colonel Sofiya Qureshi as an Operation Sindoor spokesperson with the “hypocrisy” of the BJP’s “hate-mongering” against Muslims.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal represented Mahmudabad in the court while additional solicitor-general S.V. Raju argued for the Haryana government.
Expressing displeasure over Mahmudabad’s choice of words, Justice Kant said they were a “deliberate” attempt to “insult, humiliate” and cause “discomfort” to some people.
“This is what we call in the law ‘dog whistling’. Some of the comments are not offending to the nation as such. But… when the choice of words is deliberately made to insult, humiliate or cause discomfort to other persons… we do not think the learned professor was short of words…. He could have used simple language without hurting others,” Justice Kant, heading the bench, observed.
“Have some respect for the sentiments of others,”
he added.
Sibal submitted that there was no criminal intent behind the academic’s statement, but acknowledged that it should have been avoided at a time the country was facing a crisis in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.
Justice Kant said: “The country has faced a big challenge. Monsters came all the way and attacked our innocent people. We are staying united. But at this juncture, why do you (Mahmudabad) want to gain cheap popularity? Everybody talks about rights as if the country for the last 75 years was distributing rights without duties! Who will follow the duties to respect others?”
The bench told Raju that Mahmudabad’s comments appeared to be “anti-war” as he had said families of the army personnel and civilians in border areas were going to suffer, but “some words appear to have double meanings”.
Later, the court issued a written order that stated: “Having regard to the contents of the two alleged offending posts uploaded on social media, which have led to the registration of two FIRs against the petitioner, we are satisfied that no case for staying the investigation is made out.”
The written order said: “However, to holistically understand the complexity of the phraseology employed and for proper appreciation of some of the expressions used in these two online posts, we direct the director-general of police, Haryana, to constitute an SIT.”
The top court said the interim bail was granted to Mahmudabad to facilitate further investigation and directed him to surrender his passport.
Relieved: University
Ashoka University said in a statement that it was “relieved and heartened by Prof Ali Khan Mahmudabad being granted interim bail by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. It has provided great comfort to his family and all of us at Ashoka University”.
‘Rights violated’
The National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday said that “prima facie” the human rights of Mahmudabad had been violated and soughta detailed report from theHaryana government within a week. “The commission has noted that the report, which contains a gist of allegations on the basis of which he has been arrested, discloses,prima facie, that the human rights and liberty of the said professor has been violated. Therefore, it has deemed it to be a fit case for taking suo motu cognisance of the reported incident,” the NHRC said in a statement.