The congress spokesperson Pawan Khera has recently approached the Allahabad High Court seeking quashing of the First Information Report (FIR) registered against him after he botched up the name of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi at a press conference.
The division bench of Justices Sangeeta Chandra and Narendra Kumar Johari, on April 6, sought responses from the State of Uttar Pradesh and the private complainants on Khera’s plea.
The private complainants are:
– Mukesh Sharma – Member of the Legislative Assembly of UP for Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)
– Mahesh Chandra Srivastava – BJP’s Kashi Region President and
– Hen Samuel Changsan – Assam BJP Leader
At a recently held press conference, Khera botched PM Narendra Modi’s name while demanding a joint parliamentary probe into the Adani-Hindenburg row.
Khera stated that “If Narasimha Rao could form a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee), if Atal Bihari Vajpayee could form a JPC, then what problem does Narendra Gautam Das…sorry Damodardas Modi have?”
Later, he appeared to confirm the middle name with a colleague. The BJP alleged that Khera deliberately flubbed the name.
Khera was booked for offences under Section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth etc.) and Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), Section 500 (punishment for defamation), Section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and Section 505(2) (Statement creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes) of the Indian Penal Code 1860.
Afterward, he was picked up from the Delhi airport on February 23 after he boarded a plane to Chhattisgarh’s Raipur where he was headed for a meeting of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC).
He deplaned and then taken up by the Assam Police based on a first information report (FIR) registered against him.
He moved to the Supreme Court, which granted him interim protection and ordered that the 3 cases registered against him in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Assam, should be clubbed and transferred to Lucknow.
Before the High Court, Senior Advocate JN Mathur, appearing for Khera, told the Court that although in the FIR registered at Assam, there were several provisions invoked by the complainant. However, the Investigating Officer issued notice to the petitioner only under Sections 153-A, 153-B (1)/ 500/504/505(1)(b)/505(2) IPC.
Therefore, Khera’s counsel conceded that Sections 295 & 120B IPC have been removed from the purview of investigation it seems that there is no imminent threat of arrest of the petitioner.
However, he stated that he was still seeking to quash of FIR as it is oppressive, and no offense was made out from a bare perusal of the allegations in the same. The Court sought responses from the State of UP as well as the private complainants on Khera’s plea.
However, the Court made it clear that since the protection for Khera has already been extended by the top court, there exists no need for an interim order in favor of Khera.
The court stated that “This Court has perused the final order passed by the Supreme Court on 20.03.2023 and finds that the Court had already given the petitioner interim protection and also the option for applying for regular bail before the jurisdictional Court. Hence there is no need to grant any interim order as of now.”
The matter will be heard again on May 4.
