The Gauhati High Court recently quashed a criminal case filed against CNN-News18 anchor Akanksha Swarup for her statement about an alleged practice of human sacrifice at the Maa Kamakhya temple [Akansha Swarup v State of Assam and Another].

The statement had been made by Swarup during an interview with a relative of Indore businessman Raja Raghuvanshi, who was allegedly killed by his wife and her boyfriend in Meghalaya earlier this year.

“Since they had gone to Kamakhya, where sacrifices or human sacrifices are offered, is your family suspicious that this could be a tantric killing?” Swarup is stated to have asked the interviewee.

Following the interview, the Cyber Branch Police in Gawahati on June 12 had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Swarup under various provisions of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Swarup eventually filed a petition before the High Court challenging the FIR.

On October 15, Justice Shamima Jahan held that no prudent person could come to the conclusion that Swarup had made the statement or posed the question with an intention to create enmity or disharmony between groups as alleged in the FIR. The Court, therefore, quashed the FIR against Swarup.

However, the Court also remarked that her statement was careless and not required.

"It will not be out of context to however mention herein that the said statements were utterly not required in the facts of the case and the same were totally careless on the part of the petitioner as well as the interviewee. Statements made in public forum should be well thought of. The petitioner as such is constrained not to make any such statement in near future before any forum much less public media at any point of time without any authority and validation," the single-judge said.

The FIR against Swarup had been registered under Sections 196(2) (promoting enmity), 299 (malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) and 302 (wounding religious feelings) of the BNS.

The Court found that these offences were not made in the matter.

On the invocation of Section 196(2) of BNS against Swarup, the Court noted the provision pertains to the offence of promoting enmity between groups in a place of worship or in connection with any religious ceremonies.

"The comments made by the petitioner were not in any place of worship or in an assembly engaged in the performance of religious worship or religious ceremony," the Court found.

The Court also ruled that Section 299 of the BNS, the provision that criminalizes the acts of deliberate and malicious intention of outraging religious feelings of a class of citizens, was not attracted.

"It can also be noticed that the petitioner while making the said statements that human sacrifices are offered at Kamakhya cannot said to be with the deliberate and malicious intention for outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizen of India. It can also be not said that by making that statement, she had intentions to insult or she has attempted to insult religion or religious beliefs of a particular class. It seems she had carelessly made that statement without any thoughtful consideration into it. The same should not have been uttered by the petitioner in public forum, which would entail the said consequence," it reasoned.

Further, the Court said that Section 302 BNS, the penal provision against deliberately hurting the religious beliefs of a person, was not attracted as prima facie, the intention to do so was missing.

"From a bare perusal of the interview as well as the contents of the FIR, it cannot be said that the petitioner with deliberate intention of wounding the religious beliefs of any person had made that statement in the said interview. It is noticed that the main purpose of the interview was to speak about the death of the deceased person under the mysterious circumstances and it was only to offer a view to the public by questioning the relative of the deceased and to extract answers as to under what conditions and circumstances the deceased could have met his death," it said.

Considering these findings, the Court quashed the FIR against the news anchor.

Senior Advocate KN Choudhury, with advocate SP Sharma. represented Swarup.

Additional Public Prosecutor KK Das appeared for the State of Assam.

[Read Judgment]