Bombay High Court has given a big relief to comedians Shekar Suman and Bharti Singh, the court has completely canceled the FIR registered against them in the year 2010. This entire controversy is of the month of November 2010. At that time, a popular comedy show named ‘Comedy Circus Ka Jadoo’ was running on Sony TV. In one episode, Bharti Singh quoted a verse from the Quran during a joke. Later, the show’s judge Shekhar Suman also repeated the same joke.
On this, a member of Raza Academy lodged a complaint that this joke has insulted the verse of Quran and hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslim community. Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered under Section 295-A (intentionally hurting religious sentiments) and Section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Pydhonie Police Station in Mumbai. In this case, names of many people including Shekhar Suman, Bharti Singh, script writer of the show and Sony Channel were involved.
What decision did the court give?
After a long legal battle in this case, Justice Amit Borkar of Bombay High Court accepted the petitions of Shekhar Suman and Bharti Singh and canceled the FIR registered against them. The court clearly said in its decision, ‘This was a light-hearted comedy show, whose purpose was only to entertain people. A comedy show cannot be seen as a religious sermon or a serious political speech. The entire show should be watched together, not just one or two sentences in isolation. ‘
the most important thing
The court stressed that a person can be held guilty under Section 295-A only if it is proved that he had deliberately and with malicious intent tried to hurt religious sentiments. In this case, the court did not find any such evil intention in Shekhar Suman or Bharti Singh. The court said that merely feeling hurt by any section of people is not a crime. Unless a clear and deliberate intention to commit a crime is proved, the criminal law cannot be imposed.
there is no fault of either of them
Let us tell you that Shekhar Suman was only in the role of a judge in the show. He was not directly involved in writing or producing the script. Bharti Singh was giving a scripted performance. No concrete evidence was found against both of them to prove the allegation that their intention was to insult any religion. Apart from this, the court also said that before starting the prosecution in a case under Section 295-A, it is necessary to take prior approval of the government under Section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which was not taken in this case. The court clearly said that pursuing this case without solid legal basis would be an abuse of the legal process, hence it was necessary to cancel the FIR.
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