‘Beheading’ remark case: Stay on proceedings against Ramdev

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, July 27

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Narinder Kaur today stayed the proceedings of a lower court in the case pertaining to the “beheading” remark made by yoga guru Ramdev during a speech at a ‘sadbhavna sammelan’ here last year.

The stay order was passed on a revision petition which came up for hearing today. Additional Solicitor General of India and senior advocate Satya Pal Jain appeared before the court of ADSJ Narinder Kaur along with RK Pandey, counsel for the revisionist.

The counsel for the revision-petitioner maintained that the lower court had mentioned that certain words uttered by the petitioner were for the Muslim community by wrongly assessing the facts. He also argued that none from the Muslim community ever raised any complaint against the petitioner.

“Besides, the complainant has never asked for summoning the petitioner under Sections 506/504 of the IPC. The order dated June 14, 2017, passed by the lower court does not show any reasons for issuing non-bailable warrant of petitioner,” the counsel maintained, adding that the proceedings in the case were being conducted in haste and without any reasonable basis.

The ADSJ stayed the proceedings before the lower court and issued a notice to the respondents for September 12.

The Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Harish Goyal had issued non-bailable warrant against the yoga guru last month. Prior to that, Ramdev had been summoned by the court under Sections 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke the breach of peace) and 506 (Criminal intimidation) of the IPC.

Supporting the chanting of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ during a ‘sadbhavna sammelan’ here on April 3, 2016, Ramdev had maintained that “Thousands of heads would have been cut on opposing the chanting of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, if we were not bound by the law.”

Following that, former state minister Subhash Batra had lodged a police complaint against Ramdev. However, as the police did not register an FIR, he approached the court.