'Judges, Police Must Uphold Free Speech': Top Court

In a significant observation, the Supreme Court on Friday said that freedom of expression is an integral part of society and upheld that there should be “reasonable restriction" on the right to speech, but this restriction “should not be unreasonable and fanciful to trample the rights of citizens".

The top court’s remarks came while quashing criminal proceedings initiated by the Gujarat Police against Congress MP ​Imran Pratapgarhi over a social media post with a poem ‘Ae khoon ke pyase baat suno’.

The court said that no offence is made out against Pratapgarhi, while also ruling that the police must first go through and understand the meaning of written or spoken words before lodging FIR in such cases. The apex court had earlier reserved its judgment on the Congress MP’s petition seeking the quashing of the FIR, after the Gujarat High Court declined to quash the case in January this year.

A bench of Justice AS Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, while quashing the FIR, stressed that freedom of speech and expression is more important than the limits placed on it. The court also said that the law against promoting enmity between religious groups (Section 196 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita) cannot be invoked merely based on the standards of insecure people who feel offended by minor criticism.

“Police officers being citizens are bound to uphold their rights. When the offence is under Section 196 BNS, it cannot be judged as per the standards of weak minds or those who always perceive every criticism as an attack on them. This has to be judged on the point of courageous minds. We have held that when an offence is alleged on the basis of spoken or uttered words, section 173(3) of BNSS has to be resorted to in order to protect fundamental rights," the Supreme Court observed. The top court also said that the Constitutional courts should be at the forefront to uphold and protect the constitutional rights and “free speech is the most cherished right".

Criticising the Gujarat High Court for declining to quash the FIR against Pratapgarhi, the Supreme Court said that the court are duty-bound to enforce the fundamental rights to the citizens.

The Congress MP was booked by the Gujarat Police based on a complaint filed by an advocate’s clerk who shared a video on social media with the poem ‘Ae khoon ke pyase baat suno’ playing in the background. Gujarat Police had applied Sections 197 (statements harming national unity), 299 (deliberate acts to insult religious beliefs), and 302 (using words to hurt religious sentiments) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

On January 17, the Gujarat High Court rejected his plea seeking the quashing of the FIR, prompting the Congress leader to move the Supreme Court.