New Delhi: The Kerala high court on Thursday, June 17, granted interim anticipatory bail to the Lakshadweep filmmaker against whom a sedition case was registered after she criticised the island’s administration.
LiveLaw has reported that a single bench of Justice Ashok Menon has granted bail to Aisha Sultana for a week, ordering her to appear before Kavaratti police for interrogation on June 20.
June 20 is date mentioned in the notice served on Sultana, under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The court has ordered bail if she is arrested. Kavaratti Police had registered an FIR against Sultana under sections 124A (sedition) and 153B (acts against national integration) of the Indian Penal Code following a complaint by C. Abdul Khader Haji, the BJP’s Lakshadweep chief.
As The Wire has reported, the BJP member had taken exception to the filmmaker calling the Union Territory’s administrator Praful Khoda Patel a ‘bioweapon’ on a television channel debate, criticising his decision to do away with mandatory quarantine in the island. This decision, she said, is responsible for the surge of COVID-19 cases in Lakshadweep.
Sultana’s counsel, senior advocate P. Vijayabhanu said in court today that the remark was made in the “heat of the moment” during the TV debate and said that it was “a lapse”, according to LiveLaw.
Also read: Criticism of Political Matters is Not Sedition: Lakshadweep Filmmaker Moves Kerala HC
He told the bench that Sultana clarified her remarks later and has apologised as well.
Vijayabhanu reportedly referred to the Supreme Court’s Kedar Nath and Vinod Dua judgments – which were also mentioned in Sultana’s plea to the court – and said that criticism against the government, “even if expressed in harsh language,” does not amount to sedition and also that this case does not require custodial interrogation.
Sultana’s bail plea was opposed by the Lakshadweep administration’s standing counsel S. Manu who said that the remark was “powerful, noxious” and could “create disaffection amongst the island inhabitants against the Government of India,” according to LiveLaw.
“She has practically sowed the seeds of separatism in the minds of people. Imagine a school going girl hearing her statements. She is a filmmaker in a position of influence…If people of Lakshadweep are told that the government of India has used bio-weapon against them like China, what more is required to create disaffection against the government. This is clearly Section 124A IPC’, the standing counsel argued, according to LiveLaw.
Advocate Krishna Raj also made submissions on behalf of a third party who opposed the bail plea. Raj said Sultana’s remarks had “international ramifications.”