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Bombay HC at Goa quashes FIR against musicians for hurting religious sentiments
Upholding the contentions of members of a band of musicians, ‘Dastaan Live’, who were arrested by the Goa Police and charged with Section 295-A of the Indian Penal Code for a song that they performed at the Serendipity Festival of Arts in Goa in December 2019, the high court bench of justices MS Sonak and MS Jawalkar on Friday quashed the FIR against the band members.
The Bombay High Court at Goa has asked police to be sensitive in matters concerning complaints of ‘outraging religious freedoms’ especially if freedom of speech and expression was at stake and “shouldn’t rush to register an FIR” or arrest artistes based on a ‘frivolous’ complaint.
Upholding the contentions of members of a band of musicians, ‘Dastaan Live’, who were arrested by the Goa Police and charged with Section 295-A (deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code for a song that they performed at the Serendipity Festival of Arts in Goa in December 2019, the high court bench of justices MS Sonak and MS Jawalkar on Friday quashed the FIR against the band members, stating that the police were not justified in registering the case, much less arresting them.
“There was no justification whatsoever for the Police Inspector to hurriedly register such an FIR, possibly without even going into the complaint or for that matter the provisions of Section 295-A of the IPC. The Police authorities are expected to be quite sensitive in such matters, because what is at stake is the freedom of speech and expression. Therefore, unless the complaint discloses the ingredients of the offense under section 295-A of IPC, it is not expected of the Police authorities to rush and register an FIR in such cases,” the court noted.
Among the songs performed by the band was their rendition of the “Mantra Kavita”, originally composed in 1969 by Vaidyanath Misra (widely known as Baba Nagarjun), a highly acclaimed poet who has received two Sahitya Akademi Awards from the Government of India.
However, a complainant K Venkat Krishna alleged that the song “has hurt the sentiments of crores of Indians.”
“To my surprise they began chanting ‘OM’, a symbol of my faith in negative narrative and ultimately abusing people chanting ‘OM’ and following to Hindu stream as ‘Ullu ke patta’. They abuse the practice by words with pictures of different walks of life and what they have said and done was blasphemy of my religion and sentiment of hundred crores of India and few million abroad,” Krishna alleged in his complaint, a copy of which he sent to the Prime Minister and the chief minister of Goa.
On the next day of their performance, members of the band -- Anirban Ghosh, Sumant Balkrishnan, Shiva Pathak and Nirmala Ravindran -- were called to Panaji police station and were informed that some person had complained about their band and that they were called to the police station to issue an apology.
The four persons, including two women, were then placed under arrest. They were eventually released on bail and those who were yet to be arrested secured anticipatory bail.
“There was no justification whatsoever to call some of the petitioners to the police station and require them to apologise or to arrest them, no sooner the FIR was registered,” the high court said.
“To simply allege that ‘OM’ which is a symbol of the complainant’s faith ‘in negative narrative’ or ‘abusing people chanting OM and followers to Hindu stream as Ullu ke Patta’ is by no means sufficient to spell out the ingredients of Section 295-A of the IPC. Further, to allege ‘blasphemy of my religion and sentiment of hundred crores of India and few million abroad’ also does not spell out the ingredients of Section 295-A of the IPC,” the high court ruled.
“The complainant, when he lodged his complaint, had not even bothered to supply the full extract of that composition to the police authorities. Even the police authorities registered the FIR, literally the minute the same was lodged, perhaps, without even bothering to either read the complaint or the provisions of Section 295-A of the IPC. The FIR records that the same was lodged at 13:17 hours on 18.12.2019 and the same recorded also at 13:17 hours on the same date,” the court noted.
“The police authorities cannot call citizens to the police station and demand apologies of this nature. As if that was not sufficient, the Police placed some of them under arrest in the late evening, thereby forcing them to seek bail. We think that there was no justification whatsoever for arresting the petitioners who were the members of this band and who have been making such presentations all over the country, unhindered and unmolested,” the high court said.
“The Supreme Court has laid down guidelines, which, according to us, were completely ignored by the police authorities. Based on a frivolous complaint, some of the petitioners, who were only members of a band, were incarcerated or forced to seek anticipatory bail,” the HC bench said.
“In the complaint, there are not even any allegations of deliberate or malicious intention to outrage religious feelings of any class of persons. In the absence of such allegations, therefore; there was no justification whatsoever to register the FIR and to proceed against the petitioners. The criminal machinery ought not to have been set into motion based upon such a complaint. This was indeed the abuse of the process, because it is apparent that the police authorities have not even taken cognizance of the legal position,” the High Court ruled.
“Without even examining the complaint or for that matter the provisions of section295-A, [the police] hurriedly registered the FIR and then proceeded to even arrest some of the Petitioners, possibly because they refused to apologize at the police station. This is certainly not how the Police machinery should act in a matter of this nature,” the high court ruled.
The high court stopped short of imposing costs “in the fond hope that the state of Goa and the Goa Police will not act similarly in the future.”
