The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave interim protection from arrest to suspended Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma in cases filed against her in connection with her disparaging remarks about Prophet Muhammad, Live Law reported.
The court also issued notices to the Centre and states where cases against Sharma have been lodged in response to her petition. The suspended BJP spokesperson has demanded that either the first information reports filed against her in different states should be quashed, or they be clubbed together and transferred to Delhi.
“The petitioner has now filed a miscellaneous application pointing out inter alia that it has become impossible for her to avail the alternate remedy granted by this court and that there is an imminent necessity to protect her life and liberty as guaranteed under article 21,” the court noted in its order, Bar and Bench reported.
Sharma’s comments about the Prophet, made during a debate on the Times Now television channel on May 26, had led to a spate of violence and unrest across several parts of the country in June. India also faced a diplomatic outrage from a number of Gulf countries. Two men have been killed for supporting her.
One first information report has been filed against her in Delhi, another in Telangana, five in Maharashtra and two in West Bengal, according to Bar and Bench.
Sharma has sought to renew her plea that was withdrawn after the Supreme Court on July 1 had refused to entertain it.
The fresh plea was on Tuesday heard by a bench of Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing Sharma, told the court on Tuesday that threats against his client had increased after she withdrew her first petition. He contended that there was a genuine threat to her life and it was practically impossible for her to take any other recourse except approaching the court.
Singh also told the court that Salman Chisti, a caretaker of the Ajmer dargah in Rajasthan, had in a video called for killing her. He also said that the Kolkata Police have issued a look out circular against her, due to which she fears that she may be arrested.
The court directed that as an interim measure, no coercive action should be taken against Sharma.
Notably, the bench headed by Justice Kant had come down heavily on Sharma on July 1, saying that Sharma should have apologised to the country.
The judges had also orally said that Sharma was single-handedly responsible for the tensions in the country and that being a spokesperson of a national political party does not give anyone the liberty to speak “such disturbing things”.
“These are not religious people at all, they make statements to provoke,” the judges had said, while asking Sharma to approach the High Courts.
Following these remarks, a group of former judges, bureaucrats and retired officers of the armed forces on July 4, in an open letter to Chief Justice NV Ramana, stated that the Supreme Court’s observations about Sharma were not in sync with judicial ethos.
In Monday’s plea, Sharma said that she was facing threat to her life from fringe elements due to the Supreme Court’s observations against her, according to Bar and Bench.
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