Allahabad HC rejects PFI activist’s bail plea, says freedom of speech not absolute

The Allahabad High Court has mentioned the basic proper to freedom of speech and expression in a secular state isn’t a licence to harm spiritual emotions, faiths and beliefs of fellow residents.
Rejecting the anticipatory bail utility of Popular Front of India (PFI) member Mohammad Nadeem, Justice Chandra Dhari Singh noticed that somebody who takes the chance of “dissemination of blasphemous messages is not entitled to get the discretion of the Court exercised in his favour”.
Nadeem was booked below IPC Section 153-A (selling enmity) by Barabanki police on a grievance filed by one Anil Kumar who had alleged that the PFI member was “propagating that every Muslim has to come forward to protect the site of Babri Masjid” in view of the foundation-laying ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
The grievance mentioned because of the “propaganda, there was a probability of communal tension”.
Nadeem’s counsel advised the court docket that allegations made within the FIR have been “false and fabricated” and the lodging the FIR “is nothing but off-shoot to the protest as well as the petition filed by the applicant against his illegal detention by the police”.
The High Court noticed that prima facie, the offence punishable below IPC part 153A “is attracted to the facts of the case”.
The court docket, nonetheless, clarified that the observations made in its order have been “only for the purpose of deciding the application for anticipatory bail” and it should have no bearing on the investigation or the trial of the case.