The Tripura High Court has ruled that insults to religion made without any deliberate or malicious intention to outrage the religious feelings of a class is not an offence under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, Bar and Bench reported on Monday.

The section states that whoever, “with deliberate and malicious intention” of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by songs or by visible representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.”

A single-judge bench of Chief Justice Akil Kureshi delivered the order on February 26. It comes at a time when several cases have been filed in India under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code.

Justice Kureshi made the observations while quashing a first information report filed against petitioner Dulal Ghosh for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of the Hindu community via his Facebook post on Bhagavad Gita. The complainant in the case argued that Ghosh made “distasteful” and “derogatory comments” by writing in Bengali that the sacred religious text is “deceitful”.

The additional public prosecutor told the court that there was a “clear attempt” to hurt the religious feelings of the Hindu community with such remarks.

However, Ghosh submitted that the Facebook post was “deliberately twisted and misinterpreted” by the complainant. “The petitioner neither had the intention nor desired to hurt the religious feelings of any community or class of citizens,” his plea said. “The petitioner never intended to demean the Holy Book Gita. The words used by the petitioner do not amount to any derogation or insult. The complainant has given a wrong connotation of the term used by the petitioner in order to make out a false case of criminal offence.”

The court examined the Bengali dictionary to figure out the meaning of the word “thakbaji” used by Ghosh. It said the word “may mean or may not mean anything at all”, but does not certainly convey the meaning ascribed to it by the complainant.

“It is not the role of the court or for that matter the police to extract a meaning of a Facebook post whether the post is possible of any meaning or not,” the judge said in his order. “It may be frivolous, it may be redundant, it may make no sense. The question is, by placing such a post has the poster committed offence under Section 295A of IPC? When the answer to this question is in the negative, the complaint must be quashed.”

The order added:

“Insults to religion made unwittingly or carelessly or without any deliberate or malicious intention to outrage the religious feelings of a class would not come within the said section [295A]...The law is clear. The petitioner can hold his personal beliefs and within the framework of law can also express them, as long as he does not transgress any of the restrictions imposed by law to the freedom of his speech and expression.”

— Justice Akil Kureshi, Bar and Bench

Cases under Section 295A

Comedian Munawar Faruqui, along with four others – Nalin Yadav, Sadakat Khan, Prakhar Vyas and Edwin Anthony – were booked under Section 295A in January for allegedly hurting religious sentiments during a show at a cafe in Indore. Faruqui was arrested on January 1, and was given bail by the Supreme Court on February 5.

A first information report has also been filed under Section 295A against Amazon Prime Video’s India Content Head Aparna Purohit in connection with the web series Tandav. Purohit moved the Supreme Court after the Allahabad High Court rejected her bail plea on February 25, saying that the use of the word “Tandav” could offend majority of the people in the country as it was associated to Hindu deity Shiva. On March 5, the top court granted her interim protection from arrest.