The Kerala High Court on Thursday stayed for four weeks all further proceedings in the case registered against Nair Service Society (NSS) vice president and others in connection with the Namajapayathra taken out in Thiruvananthapuram in protest against the controversial statement of Speaker A.N. Shamseer on Ganesha.
Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan passed the order when a writ petition filed by NSS vice president Sangeeth Kumar challenging the registration of FIR against him and other NSS activists came up for hearing.
Petitioner’s stance
When the petition came for hearing, senior counsel P. Vijayabhanu, appearing for the NSS vice president, contended that the allegations made in the FIR did not disclose the commission of any offence and make out a case against him and others. There was no case for the prosecution that any member of the assembly had a common object of committing any offence.
Nor did the prosecution have any case that any of the participants had used force. In fact, thousand of NSS activists who had participated in the demonstration lives in the constant fear of being arrested.
Earlier instance
The counsel also pointed out that the principles applied in the Prakash Karat vs. State of Kerala case would apply in the cases. The High Court had quashed the cases registered against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, CPI(M) leaders Prakash Karat, V.S. Achuthanandan and Minister V. Sivankutty in connection with the 2009 human chain protest against India’s entry into a trade agreement with ASEAN countries. The court had observed in the case that when the dissent was expressed without causing any harm or even a significant inconvenience, it would be too puerile to proceed criminally against the dissenters.
Merely because the dissent was not acceptable to the majority, that is not a reason to initiate criminal action unless the dissent was coupled with violent, disorderly or damaging conduct by any member of the assembly.
‘Peacefully assembled‘
The petitioner contended that the activists of NSS had peacefully assembled to protest against the ‘inflammatory statement’ of the Speaker. The right to protest by peaceful assembly was an essential ingredient of the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution. An assembly of persons without arms or without criminal force or without any intent to commit any offence could only be a lawful assembly.
Besides, in order to invoke the offence under Section 283 of the Indian Penal Code (danger or obstruction in public way), obstruction of any person was required. Inconvenience to the public on road without any obstruction would not attract the alleged offence. Therefore the petitioner sought to quash the FIR filed before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court-III, Thiruvananthapuram.
