Whether the court could take cognizance of the alleged hate speech by MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi and direct registration of a case under section 295A of the IPC was the point of discussion at the Seventh Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in Nampally on Monday.
While the court felt that the government approval was necessary to take up a case dealing with Section 295 A, which deals with deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs, petitioner advocate K. Karunasagar argued that there were Supreme Court judgments which spoke about the authority of the courts to take cognizance of the case under this section. The government approval could be taken later, he argued.
The petitioner sought a day’s time to quote the apex court judgment to buttress his argument. Acceding to his request, the court posted the matter to Tuesday. Incidentally, it was only in this case the provisions of section 295 A of the IPC were sought to be invoked while in other petitions in different courts, cases were booked under section 153A of the IPC. This section deals with prompting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, language and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.
In a related development, another court which heard the arguments on a petition filed by Mangalhat corporator Raja Singh against Mr. Owaisi too posted it for hearing on Tuesday. This petition was filed against Mr. Owaisi for his alleged inflammatory speech in Nirmal in 2012.
Police examines footage
Meanwhile, the Osmania University police examined the footage of Akbaruddin’s speech. “There are several aspects in the CD but we cannot disclose them. We will act only after taking legal opinion,” a senior police official said.
The story was corrected for a factual error.
