The Karnataka High Court has held that use of the term 'jihadi' in a Facebook post would not attract the offences of outraging religious sentiments or publishing statements intended to promote enmity between different religious communities.

In doing so the court quashed an FIR against a Facebook user accused of hurting sentiments of Muslim community by posting a social media post, holding that the contents of the message did not attract the offences under Sections 295A and 505(2) IPC.

Section 295A punishes deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class of citizens. Section 503(2) punishes making, publishing, or circulating statements, rumors, or alarming news intended to promote feelings of enmity, hatred, or ill-will between different religious, racial, language, regional groups, castes, or communities. 

The petitioner argued that the message did not attract ingredients of the offences alleged. Meanwhile the State argued that the words used in the message like 'jihadi, kafir'  are intended to hurt the feelings of Muslim community and would result in social disharmony. 

Justice V. Srishananda observed that continuing the criminal case in the absence of the ingredients required to constitute the offence would amount to an abuse of the process of law.

To constitute an offence under Section 295A of the IPC, the High Court laid down the essential ingredients—(i) That an insult (or an attempt to insult the religion or religious belief) was done to outrage the religions feelings of any class of citizens of India; (ii) That such an act was done by words (either spoken or written) or by signs or by visible representation or otherwise; (iii) That such an act must be with deliberate and malicious intention.

The Court further outlined the essential requirements of Section 505(2) of the IPC— (i) That the accused made (published or circulated) any statement, rumour or alarming news; (ii) That the accused did so with intent to, (a) Create or promote (or which he knew it likely to create or promote) any member of the Army, Navy or Air Force to mutiny or otherwise disregard or fail in his duty as such; (b) Cause fear or alarm to the public or a section of the public which may induce the commission of an offence against the State or against public tranquillity; (c) To incite (or which is likely to incite) one class or community of persons to commit an offence against any other class or community.

The High Court, accordingly, held, “On close reading of the above ingredients, vis-à-vis the message that has been posted on the facebook account of the petitioner named as Hindu Samrat Dharmasene, this Court does not find that the suo moto action initiated by the Badavanahalli Police Station, needs further investigation for want of necessary ingredients to attract those offences. As such, continuation of the same would amount to abuse of the process of law.”

Allowing the writ petition, the High Court quashed the criminal proceedings against the petitioner.

Background

The petitioner had posted a Kannada message on a Facebook page called Hindu Samrat Dharmasene. A member of the social media monitoring cell spotted the message and filed a complaint, alleging that the post hurt the feelings of a particular community and was likely to disrupt social harmony. Based on this complaint, the Badavanahalli Police registered a case under Sections 295A and 505(2) IPC.

Against this petitioner moved the high court seeking quashing.