Supreme Court grants interim bail to comedian Munawar Faruqui

The Supreme Court Friday granted interim bail to standup comic Munawar Faruqui in a case accusing him of hurting religious sentiments. Faruqui had challenged the Madhya Pradesh High Court order which had rejected his bail application on January 28. He had filed a writ petition as well as a Special Leave to Appeal (SLP), and both were heard by a bench of Justices R F Nariman and B R Gavai.

The bench also stayed the production warrant of Uttar Pradesh Police against Faruqui in a separate case.

The Court issued notice to the Madhya Pradesh government while observing that the law laid down by the Supreme Court in its 2014 judgment in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar was not followed and procedure under Section 41 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was not complied with, according to Bar& Bench.

The Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh HC had observed that evidence collected until now shows that “outraging religious feelings of a class of citizens of India with deliberate intendment” were made by the applicants. The HC said, “The evidence/material collected so far suggest that in an organised public show under the garb of standup comedy at a public place on commercial lines, prima facie; scurrilous, disparaging utterances, outraging religious feelings of a class of citizens of India with deliberate intendment were made by the applicants.”

A single-judge bench of Justice Rohit Arya had observed that “be that as it may, this Court refrains from commenting upon contentions of the parties touching on merits but, regard being had to the material seized and the statements of the witnesses and that the investigation is in progress, no case is made out for grant of bail.”

Dismissing the bail applications, the HC observed: “There is also a specific assertion by the learned counsel for the complainant that the applicant along with other co-accused persons allegedly making outraging filthy jokes in social media deliberately against Hindu Gods, Lord Shri Ram and Goddess Sita hurting religious sentiments of Hindus for the last 18 months despite, protest on various social media platforms. There is nothing on record to the contrary.”

Faruqui was arrested in Indore on January 1 following a complaint by Eklavya Singh Gaur, the son of BJP MLA Malini Singh Gaur and convenor of local outfit Hindu Rakshak, that the comedian allegedly hurt Hindu religious sentiments during a comedy show at a popular cafe that day.