A Delhi court on Friday dismissed a revision petition filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra challenging the summons in connection with a 2020 case under the Representation of the People Act, PTI reported.
Special Judge Jitendra Singh of the Rouse Avenue Court said that statements Mishra had made in 2020 appeared to be a “brazen attempt to promote enmity on the grounds of religion by way of indirectly referring to a country which unfortunately in common parlance is often used to denote the members of a particular religion”, PTI reported.
The word “Pakistan is very skilfully woven by the revisionist [Mishra] in his alleged statements to spew hatred, careless to communal polarisation that may ensue in the election campaign, only to garner votes”, The Indian Express reported.
Mishra, who is now the law minister in the Delhi government, has been accused of posting allegedly objectionable comments in the electronic media on January 23, 2020, in connection with Assembly elections in the national capital. The case was filed based on a complaint by the returning officer.
The case also pertains to a social media post by Mishra that there will be an “India vs Pakistan” contest on the “streets of Delhi” on February 8, 2020, the polling day.
He was booked for promoting enmity between classes in connection with the election under section 125 of the Representation of the People Act. A chargesheet in the matter was filed in November 2023.
A month after Mishra was summoned by the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate, he had moved a revision petition before the special court in July.
On Friday, the judge observed that the Election Commission was under constitutional obligation to prevent candidates from indulging in “vitriolic vituperation with impunity, vitiating and contaminating the atmosphere for free and fair election”, PTI reported.
Lawyer Pavan Narang, representing Mishra, argued that the alleged comments did not refer to a caste, community, religion, race or language but to a country, which was not prohibited under section 125 of the Act, The Indian Express reported.
In response, Singh said that the submission was “simply preposterous and outrightly untenable”.
“…the implicit reference underlying the particular country in the alleged statement is an unmistaken innuendo to persons of a particular religious community, apparent to generate enmity among religious communities,” Singh was quoted as having said. “This can be effortlessly understood even by a layman, let alone by a reasonable man.”
Also read Scroll’s Delhi 2020 series:
- The futile, five-year struggle to lodge an FIR against Kapil Mishra
- Five years later: Delhi Police’s riots conspiracy case is built on sand
- Watch: Delhi riots, five years on: Muslim men forced to sing national anthem continue to fight for justice
- Watch: ‘Detention without trial violation of rights’: Banojyotsna Lahiri on Umar Khalid, CAA and godi media
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