High Court Reprieve for Swamy in Alleged Hate Speech Case

GUWAHATI:The Guwahati High Court on Friday stayed an order of  Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Karimganj, which had last month issued a non-bailable warrant against BJP leader Subramanian Swamy for his alleged hate speech that the “masjid is just a building and an ideal place for namaz but not a religious institution”.

The order was issued by a Single-judge Bench of Justice Biplab Kumar Sharma.

Emerging from the court,  Swamy, who argued his case as a ‘petitioner-in-person’, told reporters that the main issue on which the public prosecutor had been questioned pertained to  the CJM’s  failure to  follow Section 200 of the CrPC. “Section 200 of the CrPC requires a complainant to make a statement on forth and be examined by the Magistrate (CJM) and the Magistrate also examine the witnesses. The public prosecutor agreed that Section 200 is mandatory and it was not complied with. On that basis, notice was issued to the public prosecutor to file their counter and a notice, returnable in four weeks,” the BJP leader said.

According to the BJP  leader, the order of the CJM was illegal. “It was abuse of process from day one, we knew. Summons issued were never served on me. The court had issued a non-bailable warrant against me. But the Supreme Court said if the summons were avoided, which I didn’t, and the person doesn’t turn up, then you should first issue a bailable warrant and later you can think of non-bailable warrant. Non-bailable warrants are issued in the rarest of rarest cases,” he  pointed out.

On Friday, he reiterated, “In Saudi Arabia, they often demolish such buildings in order to make roads etc,” he said. The BJP leader had made the alleged hate speech here at a programme of the Kaziranga University in March.. The BJP leader had then drawn flak from several organisations such as Chhatra Mukti Sangram Samiti (CMSS), Wakf Board, Assam and the All Minority Students’ Union. While an FIR was registered against him by the police on a complaint by the CMSS under Sections 120(B) (criminal conspiracy), 298 (uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person), and 153(A) (promoting enmity among different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language), another complaint was lodged by an advocate of the trial court, Karimganj, for “hurting the sentiments of Muslims”.

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