Kerala High Court dismisses plea by Swapna Suresh to quash FIRs for conspiracy, provocation to cause riots

The Kerala High Court on Friday refused to quash the fresh first information reports (FIRs) registered against prime accused in the 2020 gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, alleging conspiracy behind her remarks against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan [Swapna Prabha Suresh v State of Kerala]..Justice Ziyad Rahman AA opined that the plea was premature and that the case warranted no interference at this stage. "Thus, after going through the entire materials available before this Court, I am of the view that, the challenge raised by the petitioner is pre-mature. The petitioner could not make out a case for interference at this stage and I do not find any justifiable reasons for interference in the present investigations," the order stated..The Court also rejected the contention that the allegations raised by Suresh were in a statement given under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and that her statements to the media were only on its contents."However, it is evident from the records including the statements submitted by the 1st respondent that, the registration of the crime was not in respect of a single instance of revealing the contents of a statement made by her under Section 164 Cr.PC. To be precise, it is not a case of single incident where a statement was happened to be made by the petitioner when she was questioned by the media persons. On the other hand, it is evident that, the petitioner made and published a series of statements on several days through various TV programmes, through various news channels. Therefore, it cannot be treated as a single incident of making a statement as projected by the petitioner in the Crl.MC," the Court observed in its order..In July 2020, pursuant to an investigation conducted by Enforcement Directorate (ED) into money laundering, illegal financial transactions and massive gold smuggling through diplomatic channels, suspected offenders, including Suresh, were arrested and interrogated in Kerala.After spending over a year in jail, Suresh was released in November 2021 after securing bail.In June 2022, after she recorded a statement in the gold smuggling case before a Magistrate Court, Suresh spoke to the media alleging that the Chief Minister, his wife and daughter, Member of Legislative Assembly KT Jaleel and several high ranking officials were involved in anti-social and anti-national activities involving the Consulate where she used to be employed. She revealed that she had deposed in detail about the same before the Magistrate.A blazing political row ensued with allegations and counter-allegations flying at political parties across the board.Subsequently, former education minister and current Member of Legislative Assembly of the ruling front, KT Jaleel, filed a complaint at the Thiruvananthapuram Cantonment Police Station.The allegation was that Suresh had conspired with former MLA PC Geroge and subsequently made false and defamatory statements before the Magistrate and the media in an attempt to incite riots.This led to the registration of an FIR under Sections 153 (provocation with intent to cause riots and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.In the plea moved by Suresh through advocates R Krishna Raj, R Pratheesh, ES Soni, Sangeetha S Nair and Resmi A, it was stated that the complaint lodged by Jaleel was a false one.It was alleged that the Chief Minister is hell bent on getting Suresh into custody to coerce her into withdrawing her statements. The plea also claimed that a person claiming to be close to the Chief Minister and veteran CPI(M) leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan came to meet her and threatened and pressured her to withdraw her 164 statement.Therefore, to protect her from the supposed malicious attempts to intimidate her, she approached the Court to quash the FIR..However, the Prosecution, led by Director General of Prosecution, Senior Advocate TA Shaji submitted that the investigation in the case has been handed over to a Special Investigation Team which has made significant strides in the probe.It was claimed that the evidences and material collected so far clearly reveal the commission of the offences alleged and that the remarks made by her led to immediate rioting and breach of peace across the State..The Court, after going through the material on record, referred to the Supreme Court's decision in Bhajan Lal's case which laid down the principles for quashing an FIR, and held that the instant FIR would not qualify for quashing..Suresh had also approached the Court twice seeking anticipatory bail in the FIRs. The Court had dismissed the first of the said bail applications in June and the second one is pending consideration..[Read Order]