The Supreme Court on Friday listed for urgent hearing the anticipatory bail plea of a cartoonist accused of uploading “objectionable” caricatures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, RSS workers and Lord Shiva on social media.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi agreed to hear on July 14 the plea filed by Hemant Malviya challenging Madhya Pradesh High Court’s July 3 order refusing to grant him relief after observing that he had hurt religious sentiments and misused freedom of speech and expression.
Senior advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for Malviya, contended that the high court had erroneously taken a view that the accused was not entitled to the protection of Section 41-A of the CrPC/ Section 35 of the BNSS and safeguards enunciated in the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Arnesh Kumar vs State of Bihar (2014) case.
Section 41-A of the CrPC/ Section 35 of the BNSS provides for the issuance of a notice to appear before a police officer instead of immediate arrest. In the Arnesh Kumar case, the apex court had held that no one can be arrested, especially in cases where the offence is punishable with imprisonment of less than seven years, unless there are compelling reasons.
Grover submitted that the matter pertained to a cartoon that Malviya drew in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
An FIR was registered against Malviya at Lasudiya police station in Indore in May this year on the complaint of local lawyer and RSS worker Vinay Joshi.
The complaint alleged that Malviya had hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus and disturbed communal harmony by uploading derogatory material on social media.
The FIR mentioned various “objectionable” posts, including allegedly inappropriate comments on Lord Shiva as well as cartoons, videos, photographs and comments regarding Modi, RSS workers and others.
While dismissing Malviya’s plea, the high court had observed: “... The conduct of the applicant in depicting the RSS, which is a Hindu organisation, along with the Prime Minister of this country in the aforesaid caricature, coupled with his endorsement of a rather demeaning remark, dragging unnecessarily the name of Lord Shiva in the comments tagged to it, is nothing but the sheer misuse of the freedom of speech and expression as enshrined under Art.19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and falls under the definition of offence as contended by the complainant.
“...The post becomes more unsettling when the aforesaid derogatory lines involving Lord Shiva are also added to it, and which have also been favourably endorsed by the applicant himself who is also encouraging other people to experiment with the said caricature, which certainly cannot be said to be made in good taste or faith.”
The high court had added it was apparent that it was a deliberate and malicious attempt to outrage religious feelings, and Malviya “clearly overstepped the threshold of freedom of speech and expression”.