Justice Ramesh Ranganathan of the AP High Court on Friday refused to quash the multiple FIRs registered against Majlis MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, in the wake of his speeches at Nizamabad and Nirmal in December 2012.
The judge did not concede his request to direct the police not to register any further cases against him for his speeches. The limited relief the MLA got was that the investigation will now be done by the Crime Investigation Department and the Majils leader need not appear before every police station which registered cases.
The judge was disposing of the writ petition filed by the Majlis leader who represents the Chandrayanagutta constituency. The petitioner sought a direction to quash the FIR registered by the Osmania University police.
It may be recalled that after his speeches at Nizamabad and Nirmal, several cases were registered following complaints filed by the citizens. The MLA was in custody and was not granted bail immediately. In his petition, he contended that multiple FIRs for the same speeches and ever increasing notices from various police stations were violative of his fundamental rights and curtailed his freedom.
Elaborate order
In his elaborate order, the judge recalled the principles laid down in 155 similar cases and referred to judgments in cases field by Kushboo and MF Husain who faced multiple criminal cases in many police stations. The judge declared that it would be wholly inappropriate for this court to give a blanket order to the government and the DGP not to register further complaints against him. The judge directed the authorities to transfer the FIRs registered at the Nizamabad and the Osmania University police stations to CID.
While closing the case, Justice Ramesh Ranganathan said he hoped that necessary legislation was made at the earliest to protect the fundamental rights of a citizen, under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, against the consequences of multiple complaints being registered against him, for the same incident/offence.
