New Delhi, Feb 23.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera be released on bail in a case filed against him in Assam over his alleged disrespectful remarks against PM Narendra Modi during a press conference on the Adani controversy recently.
The Opposition leader was detained at the Delhi airport by Assam police while he was on way to Chhattisgarh. He was ostensibly offloaded from the flight. He will now be produced before the appropriate court under which the airport falls.
Khera had apologised for his “inadvertent” remarks the very same day. However, at least three cases have been filed against him in Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, in this context.
The sections invoked against him include creating enmity between different religious groups, deliberate and malicious remarks to outrage religious feelings etc.
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud ordered that Khera would be released on bail when he is produced in the appropriate jurisdictional court in Delhi later today. The order, the court said, would be out later today.
The bench, which also included Justices B.R. Gavai and P.S. Narasimha, agreed with Khera’s counsel, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, that no prima facie case seemed to be made out under these sections on the face of it.
“How are these charges prima facie made out,” the CJI asked ASG Aishwarya Bhatti. Bhatti insisted that the remarks were deliberate and were intended to insult the “duly elected Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy”.
The interim protection extended to Khera will continue till Tuesday. The bench also issued notices on Khera’s plea to have all the multiple FIRs in the case clubbed together in a single legal jurisdiction as in the Arnab Goswami case.
The states of Uttar Pradesh and Assam would have to respond to the notices by Monday when the case will be taken up today. Consolidation of FIRs facilitates a single probe and a single trial obviating the need for the person named to run around across the country trying to defend himself.
Singhvi in his arguments contended that sometimes remarks cross a certain boundary during the heat of the debate. This is not true of what happens in courts, but in political discourse things are different, he said.
He said that he personally had never crossed the line as a party spokesperson, pointed out that Khera had expressed his regrets the very same day.
Besides this, he said, there was the issue of free speech. Such remarks, he said, cannot be said to be an offence under the sections invoked against him. “The latitude of free speech cannot be said to be thin eggshells.”
At Bhatti’s insistence the bench also watched the short video containing the controversial remarks. “Look at the whole video, his demeanour, the language,” she said. The bench then heard out the remarks before passing an order.
The Opposition Congress has been demanding a JPC on the Hindenberg which has led to a free fall in the share prices of the Adani group. Khera was speaking at a press conference on the issue.
