Careless Insults To Religion Without The Intention To Hurt Relgious Sentiments Not An Offence Under IPC: Tripura HC

OVERVIEW 

The Tripura High court recently held that insults to a religion made ‘without any deliberate or malicious intention to outrage the religious feelings’ of a community does not smount to an offence under section 295A of the IPC.

The Court dismissed an FIR filed over a Facebook post for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus by insulting the Bhagvad Gita in his comments. 

BRIEF ACCOUNT 

The petitioner contended that the comment in question was ‘deliberately twisted and misinterpreted’ by the complainant. Additionally, he also stated that his post was in Bengali and actually meant that Gita is ‘a pan which fries swindlers.’

His statement said that it was neither his intention nor his desire to attack towards any religious sentiments of any community or class of citizens, emphasising that he is being falsely implicated in a criminal case only due to his personal beliefs. 

The Additional Public Prosecutor, however, contended that the petitioner had ‘exhibited a clear intention to hurt the religious feelings by making derogatory remarks about a Holy book.’ 

He further stated other incidents where the petitioner had allegedly displayed hostility towards religious feelings, thus insisting that his post be observed in the background of his previous posts.

The single-judge bench of Chief Justice Akil Kureshi referred to the record of a Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court in Ramji Lal Modi v. State of U.P. stating,

“Section 295A only punishes the aggravated form of insult to religion when it is perpetrated with the deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of that class. The calculated tendency of this aggravated form of insult is clearly to disrupt the public order and the section which penalises such activities, is well within the protection Clause 2 of Art. 19 as being a law imposing reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Art. 19 (1)(a).”

The Additional Public Prosecutor also argued that the petitioner’s expression transgressed the restrictions imposed by law to his freedom of speech & expression. However, the bench stated that even if it accepts this contention, it is not the place or role of the Court or the police to interpret the meaning of a Facebook post to determine the true meaning and intention behind it.

“It may be frivolous, it may be redundant, it may make no sense. Neither in the complaint nor before me by the State any such previous posts of the petitioner of offending nature, even if for the moment one were to presume that the present post is one, has been placed 0on record. Mere passing allegation of the petitioner being in habit of placing such posts, cannot be the ground for permitting a fishing inquiry.”

CONCLUSION 

The Court thus held that it is shall not be possible for any reasonable person with common sense and intelligence to discern a derogatory or demeaning intention ascribed by the petitioner to the holy book without any background to the situation.

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