Punjab and Haryana High Court quashes FIR against Kumar Vishwas

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 12

Quashing an FIR registered against former AAP leader and poet Kumar Vishwas, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today asserted there could not be any democracy without the freedom of choice and free speech.

Can’t be said to have spewed venom

The petitioner being a social educator, while sharing the alleged exchange that took place with his ex-associate, cannot be said to have spewed venom. Justice Anoop Chitkara, HC

Justice Anoop Chitkara asserted it has always been India’s quest to flirt with new ways for self-realisation. Her vivacity and dynamism could be greatly attributed to an environment of diversity and freedoms abound. Even in the shackles of colonialism, her mind remained free and eager for deliverance.

Justice Chitkara added: “With the liberation of her soul, the ‘swatantrata’ was not just from British rule but from the slavery of thoughts, unchaining of oneself from the subjugation of alien laws, restoring the absolute freedom to think, undoing the status quo, and spreading the information.

“The petitioner being a social educator, while sharing the alleged exchange that took place with his ex-associate, cannot be said to have spewed venom. There is nothing to infer any intention to divide the classes on communal lines”.

Vishwas was seeking the quashing of the FIR registered on April 12 after he was accused of giving provocative statements against AAP’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal in interviews from February 16 to February 19 alleging his involvement “with certain nefarious and anti-social elements”. Advocates RS Rai and Chetan Mittal contended it was further alleged that the statements subjected AAP leaders and workers to violence. On April 12, 10-12 unknown persons restrained, waylaid, tried to assault and manhandled the complainant and others by pushing them into a corner.

The FIR was registered within two hours of receiving the complaint apparently without preliminary probe to confirm the veracity of the allegations. Justice Chitkara said the petitioner was not one of the 10-12 persons, who allegedly waylaid the complainant. There was, prima facie, no material connecting the incident with the interviews of the petitioner, and there were missing links.

As such, it would not be permissible to expand the scope of the complaint to connect the alleged subsequent incident on the assumptions and suspicions of the complainant. It was a fit case for the court to prevent the abuse of the process of law.

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