A local court in Muzaffarnagar on Thursday refused to take cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the U.P. police against BJP president Amit Shah for a hate speech he allegedly made while campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls in western U.P.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Sundar Lal returned the charge sheet to the police, saying they had not followed the provisions of 173[2] of the Cr.PC. They did not try to arrest the accused before submitting the charge sheet to the court. Neither did they seek warrant nor attachment proceedings against the accused.
Under Section 188, the charge sheet should be filed as a private complaint by the officer who imposed the prohibitory orders that were violated. The court asked the police to come back to it after fixing the errors.
Senior police officers, however, said no politics should be read into the issue, as the process was initiated by the Election Commission through its direction to file an FIR against the BJP president. Filing the charge sheet was just a part of that process.
The court, they said, had returned the charge sheet on technical grounds.
By-polls to 11 Assembly segments and one Lok Sabha seat in U.P. are to be held on September 13.
In his meetings on April 4 in Bijnore, Shamli and Muzaffarnagar, the BJP chief had reportedly exhorted Jats to “take revenge for the insult,” inflicted during last year’s riots, by voting for the BJP candidates.
“A man can live without food or sleep. He can live when he is thirsty and hungry. But when he is insulted, he can’t live,” the BJP chief had allegedly said. The remark had immediately drawn a sharp reaction from the Election Commission which then had issued a notice to him for prima facie violation of the model code. It also banned Mr. Shah from campaigning in the State.
The ban was later lifted as the BJP leader had denied violating the model code of conduct and requested the EC to reconsider its notice.
