Making allegation against political leaders even if untrue not offence under 505 IPC: Chhattisgarh High Court quashes FIRs against Sambit Patra

The Chhattisgarh High Court today quashed First Information Reports (FIRs) registered against BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra for his tweets on former Prime Ministers of India Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi (Dr Sambit Patra v. State of Chhattisgarh)..While doing so, the Single Judge Bench of Justice Sanjay K Agrawal held while the contents of the tweets might be untrue, it was not of such nature that could any community to commit an offence against another. "The contents of the two posts made by the petitioner may be incorrect/untrue, but it cannot be said that the same was posted with intent to incite or which is likely to incite any class or community of persons to commit any offence against any other class or community. As such, merely making allegation against the leaders of a political party even if it is incorrect/untrue would not constitute offence under Section 505(1) of the IPC and therefore ingredients of Section 505(1) of the IPC i.e. either of the three clauses, are not available and thus, no offence under Section 505(1) of the IPC is made out against the petitioner," the Court said. .The High Court held the same in petitions filed by Patra and fellow BJP Spokesperson Tajinder Pal Bagga seeking quashing of FIRs lodged against them for their tweets on Nehru and Gandhi..In May 2020, a Congress Member of Parliament posted a tweet criticising the Narendra Modi government for its mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis. In reply to this tweet, Patra stated if the Congress party would have been in charge of the pandemic, there would have been corruption on a mass scale..A complaint was subsequently filed in Delhi seeking registration of an FIR against Patra for offences under Sections 499 and 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for using derogatory remarks against the Congress party and its leaders..On hearing the news of this complaint, Patra once again took to Twitter, this time to blame Nehru for the conflict in Jammu & Kashmir and accusing Rajiv Gandhi for playing a role in the Bofors Scandal and the killing of 3,000 Sikhs. Bagga replied to this tweet, saying,“I don't agree with @sambitswaraj Ji, He said Rajiv Gandhi killed 3000 people. I want to say it’s just official figure, unofficial figure is more than 5000. Rajiv Gandhi is Murderer.”.A second complaint was then filed against Patra in Chhattisgarh for registration of offences under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the IPC and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. FIRs were subsequently registered against both Patra and Bagga, against whom Section 298 IPC (uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person) was also invoked..After finding that there was no offence committed under Section 505, the Court proceeded to delve into the charges under Section 499 and 500. While noting the two-fold test to determine defamation of a deceased person as per Section 199 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the Court held,"...complainant, who admittedly and undisputedly, is neither “family member” nor “near relative” of late Shri Jawaharlal Nehru and late Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Ministers of India, cannot unilaterally assume unto himself the status of an aggrieved person within the meaning of Section 199(1) of the CrPC.".On the charges under Section 153A, the Court held,"..In my considered view, there was no intention on the part of the petitioner herein to promote class/community hatred and no attempt was made by the petitioner to incite the people belonging to a community to indulge in any violence and merely alleging inciting the feeling of one community or group without any reference to any other community or group would not attract either of the two penal provisions.".Noting that the offence under Section 298 IPC was not made out against Bagga, the Court held,"In fact, the petitioner is said to have made two tweets which are said to be against the then Prime Ministers of the country, but there is no allegation that he uttered any oral word in presence of respondent No.4 which is one of the essential ingredients for offence under Section 298 of the IPC. There is also no allegation that the petitioner wounded the religious feelings of any person including respondent No.4. As such, none of the ingredients for constituting the offence under Section 298 of the IPC is available against the petitioner.".On these grounds, among others, the Court thus directed the quashing of the FIRs registered against Patra and Bagga..Senior Advocates Pinky Anand and Ajay Barman along with Advocates Awadhesh Kumar Singh, Rajesh Ranjan, Vivek Sharma, Abhishek Gupta, Ayushi Agrawal and Sharad Mishra appeared for the two BJP spokespersons..Additional Advocate General Sunil Otwani and Deputy Advocate General Jitendra Pali appeared for the State..[Read Judgment]