Madurai: The Madras High Court bench here
today dismissed a petition for registering a case against
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for his tweet
on the issue of death sentence to Parliament attack case
convict Afzal Guru.
Omar had tweeted two months ago that the response would
not have been muted if the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly had
passed a resolution for commuting the death sentence of
Afzal Guru.
His remarks had come in reference to a Tamil Nadu
Assembly resolution pleading for commuting capital punishment
for three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Quoting various supreme court judgments, Justice Chandru
said "a citizen for propagation of his or her ideals has a
right to publish for circulation his views in, magazines, and
journals or through electronic media."
Justice Chandru said the petitioner did not clearly state
as to how the statement attributed to Abdullah would amount to
offences under IPC 124(A)(sedition) and 298(words uttered with
deliberate intention to wound religious feelings) 505(1)(B)and
C and(2) (statement promoting enmity).
The Judge said the petitioner had not filed appropriate
complaint before the Station House officer competent to
register a case.
If the SHO had failed to receive the complaint then he
should have sent it to Inspector General(South zone). Even in
such cases, if no worthwhile action was taken, the petitioner
had other remedies, like giving a magisterial complaint.
The petitioner had not made prima facie case to show that
it was statutory offence. "If we examine whether the
ingredients of offences pointed out by the petitioner was
found out in the impugned message posted in twitter, we can
say that the message is not even remotely connected with or
attract the ingredients of sedition act."
The petition was filed to get cheap popularity. Through
filing frivolous petition, precious time of the court had been
wasted, the judge said, dismissing the petition.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, November 05, 2011, 00:37