COURTESY HT DEC  8

Govt’s criticism can’t be ground for penal action: SC
The judges were hearing a petition by journalist Amish Devgan to quash FIRs over his comments on Sufi seer Moinuddin Chishti
Utkarsh Anand & Abraham Thomas

letters@hindustantimes.com

New Delhi : Criticism of the government must be protected from criminal prosecution under charges of hate speech or public mischief, ruled the Supreme Court on Monday, outlining the contours of hate speech and freedom of expression.

Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna held that “disloyalty” to the government by law and comments was not an offence if it did not call for violence and public disorder.

The judges, who were hearing a petition by journalist Amish Devgan to quash FIRs over his comments on Sufi seer Moinuddin Chishti, also underlined that “political speech relating to government policies requires greater protection for preservation and promotion of democracy” as freedom to express and speak is the most important condition for political democracy.

“Comment or criticism of the government action, in howsoever strong words, must be protected and cannot be a ground to take penal action unless the words written or spoken, etc have pernicious tendency or intention of creating public disorder,” said the bench.

“Dissent and criticism of the elected government’s policy, when puissant, deceptive or even false would be ethically wrong, but would not invite penal action...Government should be left out from adjudicating what is true or false, good or bad, valid or invalid as these aspects should be left for open discussion in the public domain,” held the court, saying that elected representatives have the right to respond and dispel suspicion.

The Supreme Court maintained that without exciting feelings that trigger public disorder by acts of violence, “political views and criticism cannot be made subject matter of penal action” because there is a difference between ‘government established by law’ and ‘persons for the time being engaged in carrying on administration’.

The Supreme Court clarified that what would not be protected is an anti-democratic speech in general and political extremist speech in particular, which has no useful purpose, if and only when in the nature of incitement to violence that ‘creates’, or is ‘likely to create’ or ‘promotes’ or is ‘likely to promote’ disorder.

During a television show on June 15, Devgan made objectionable comments against the seer.

The journalist tweeted his apology soon after, but multiple FIRs were registered against him under laws related to hate speech and outraging religious feelings of a community.

The Supreme Court declined to quash the FIRs on the ground that it would be for the trial court to examine the content of the TV debate to ascertain whether his comments violated any law or not