New Delhi: The Madras high court on Friday, August 12, quashed a first information report (FIR) filed against Jai Bhim film’s lead actor Suriya and its director T.J. Gnanavel, which accused them of deliberately hurting the Vanniyar community through the movie.
According to Livelaw, Justice N. Satish Kumar, quashing the criminal proceedings, observed that the FIR was based on “interference and presumption” on the part of the complainant.
The FIR had been filed by Velachery Police in Chennai under Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) based on a complaint lodged by advocate K. Santhosh, president of Rudra Vanniyar Sena.
The contention of the complainant was that the film’s antagonist, Gurumurthy, was named after one Gurunathan, who was the former leader of Vanniyar Sangham and the filmmakers had also used a Vanniyar Sangham calendar in the movie with the sole intention of tarnishing the image of the community and its leaders.
In response to this, the filmmakers, in their petition for the FIR to be quashed, said that ‘Guru’ as a name was a common and there was no evidence on the part of the complainant to state that the antagonist was named solely with the intention of defaming the leader in question and the community at large.
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The filmmakers also argued that the Saidapet Magistrate who allowed the FIR to be filed did so without due diligence and mechanically forwarded it to police officials concerned without factoring in that the film had already secured proper sanctions from statutory bodies before it was released. Against this backdrop, the petitioners said the FIR amounted to “abuse of process”, calling it to be set aside.
According to NDTV, the petitioners averred that the movie was based on a case conducted by Justice K Chandru, a retired judge of the high court when he was a lawyer. Barring his and that of the former inspector general of police Perumalsamy, the names of all other characters were changed.
The court agreed with the contentions of the petitioners and granted them relief. “Merely assuming that the name given to a character in the movie resembles that of the leader of a community, it cannot be presumed that in fact such projection was made or directed against a particular community. Merely referring the same name, one cannot assume that the said name is related to a particular community,” Justice Satish Kumar said, according to Livelaw.
The court then went on to underline that to attract charges under Section 295A, there must be “deliberate and malicious intention on the part of the accused to outrage the religious feelings of any citizens”.
“This Court is of the view that when the FIR not even discloses the nature of the insult which outraged a particular section of the people, merely on the inferences and presumptions of the defacto complainant the offence under Section 295A of IPC will not get attracted. If such inference or presumption of a particular person or some individual is given importance, no doubt it will curtail the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution of India,” the judge said, according to the Livelaw report.
The court was also critical of the magistrate who forwarded the complaint “without proper application of mind”. Justice Satish Kumar said while the magistrate had stated that the complaint disclosed a “congnisable offence”, it did not state what exactly it was.
