Bowing to public pressure and criticism from the court, the Maharashtra government on Friday informed the Bombay High Court that it has decided to drop sedition charge against cartoonist Aseem Trivedi for allegedly insulting national symbols.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter having a close look at the case, it can be seen that there is clearly no case under Section 124(a) of IPC for sedition. Hence the government has decided to drop invocation of the charge against Trivedi,\u201d Advocate-General Darius Khambata told the court.<\/p>\n
A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice N.M. Jamdar was hearing a public interest litigation filed by a lawyer Sanskar Marathe against the arrest of Mr. Trivedi for sedition for drawing cartoons that allegedly insulted national emblem and Parliament.<\/p>\n
The court had at earlier hearings granted bail to Mr. Trivedi and come down heavily on the police for arresting the cartoonist on \u201cfrivolous grounds\u201d and \u201cwithout application of mind\u201d.<\/p>\n
The court had observed that the police action \u201cbreached\u201d the political cartoonist\u2019s \u201cfreedom of speech and expression\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr. Khambata, however, told the court that out of the seven cartoons drawn by Mr. Trivedi, the State had found violations in three cartoons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree cartoons we still find are violative of the National Honour Act and Information Technology Act.<\/p>\n
Proceedings in this will continue against him,\u201d Mr. Khambata said.<\/p>\n
He further said that the police action against the cartoonist was a \u201cbona fide knee jerk reaction\u201d to the numerous complaints received by them against the cartoons.<\/p>\n
\u201cArresting him was bad enough but police sought his custody also. That was more shocking,\u201d Chief Justice Shah said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to prevent such cases in the future the court should hear this matter on scope of Section 124(a). The state government has proposed to come out with a circular indicating the limitations and parameters of the said section,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n
The bench has directed the government to submit a draft circular by October 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bowing to public pressure and criticism from the court, the Maharashtra government on Friday informed the Bombay High Court that it has decided to drop sedition charge against cartoonist Aseem Trivedi for allegedly insulting national symbols. \u201cAfter having a close look at the case, it can be seen that there is clearly no case under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[17753,13629,17748,17746,2840,17749,17747,17754,17750,17752,14347,17745,17751],"class_list":["post-24008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-law-news","tag-frivolous-grounds-and-without-application-of-mind","tag-advocate-general-darius-khambata","tag-allegedly-insulted-national-emblem-and-parliament","tag-allegedly-insulting-national-symbols","tag-chief-justice-mohit-shah","tag-freedom-of-speech-and-expression","tag-justice-n-m-jamdar","tag-lawyer-sanskar-marathe-against-the-arrest-of-mr-trivedi","tag-national-honour-act-and-information-technology-act","tag-political-cartoonist","tag-sedition-charge-against-cartoonist-aseem-trivedi","tag-sedition-charges-dropped-against-cartoonist-aseem-trivedi","tag-state-had-found-violations-in-three-cartoons"],"yoast_head":"\n