Supreme Court acted differently in the case of AshfaqHussain and denied any assistance to Nupur Sharma

*Paromita Das

Nupur Sharma had petitioned the Supreme Court, claiming that she was constantly in danger of her life, to transfer all FIRs filed against her from various states to Delhi for further investigation. Whereas, AshfaqHussain, the main suspect in the murder of Hindu Samaj Party leader KamleshTiwari, made a similar request to the SC in 2021, claiming that he feared for his life and that the trial should be moved from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh to Delhi.

The trial was moved from Lucknow to Prayagraj after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. In response to the petition asking for the case to be transferred from Lucknow, Justice SK Kaul issued the ruling. Senior attorneys MeenakshiArora and Somesh Chandra Jha represented the defendant and asked that the case be moved to Prayagraj when the court refused to allow the trial to be moved to Delhi.

The Supreme Court acted differently in the case of AshfaqHussain, who has been accused of murder. But denied any assistance to Nupur Sharma, who has been facing serious threats to her life because she said something that has been deemed offensive by a certain section of the public, and that too, while the case is still being reviewed. Two very different petitioners have stated that they are facing threats to their lives, so the cases appear to have similar merits.

Unexpectedly, the Supreme Court attributed Nupur Sharma’s “loose tongue” and remarks about the Prophet Muhammad that Islamists deemed “blasphemous” to her.

KamleshTiwari’s murder

Hindu leader KamleshTiwari was brutally murdered on October 18, 2019, allegedly for remarks he made in 2015 that dissed Prophet Muhammad. A Surat-based Jihadi gang that had been indoctrinated by one of the suspects who had planned the murder, MaulanaMohsin Sheikh, was busted by the Uttar Pradesh police and the Gujarat ATS after a swift intervention.

So what was Sharma’s plea?

Sharma made disparaging comments about the Prophet and the Muslim community during a number of television debates in the final week of May while she was still the BJP spokesperson. Sharma apologized after being expelled from the BJP and withdrew her comments. She was the subject of several FIRs, some of which were filed in Delhi, Mumbai, West Bengal, and Assam. Sharma petitioned the Supreme Court to have all cases involving her being the target of hate speech transferred to a court in Delhi.

What criteria are used to group these cases?

A person may not face charges for the same offense more than once. The Constitution’s Article 20(2) guarantees the right against double jeopardy. The equivalent of multiple trials would be multiple FIRs on the same incident. A procedural safeguard against needless litigation in such circumstances is to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled in T T Anthony v State of Kerala in 2001 that a “second FIR” could not be filed on the same matter. “There cannot be a second First Information Report, and as a result, there cannot be a new investigation upon receipt of any additional information regarding the same cognizable offence or the same occurrence or incident giving rise to one or more cognizable offences. The officer in charge of a police station is required by Section 173 of the Criminal Code to investigate not only the cognizable offence reported in the FIR but also any connected offences discovered to have been committed during the same transaction or occurrence after receiving information about a cognizable offence or incident giving rise to a cognizable offence or offences and entering the F.I.R. in the station house diary.

Why rejected Sharma’s appeal by the Supreme Court?

In 2020, the Supreme Court expanded on this decision and declared that similar FIRs in various jurisdictions also violate fundamental rights. This was in the case of ArnabGoswami v. Union of India.

The ArnabGoswami case precedent was distinguished from Sharma’s case by the SC vacation Bench. It said the court had given relief to Goswami because he was a journalist and that Sharma, a party spokesperson, could not enjoy the same status.

Despite emphasizing press freedom in Goswami’s case, the SC noted that the Constitution grants all citizens the same rights to free speech.

“However, when faced with successive FIRs and complaints bearing the same foundation, allowing a journalist to be subjected to multiple complaints and to the pursuit of remedies traversing multiple states and jurisdictions has a stifling effect on the exercise of that freedom.

The right of the journalist to ensure that society is informed as well as the freedom of the citizen to be informed about national affairs will both be effectively destroyed by this. According to our rulings, a journalist’s right to speak and express themselves under Article 19(1) (a is on par with that of a citizen. The Court had stated that we as a society must never lose sight of the fact that one cannot exist without the other.
The Goswami and Anthony decisions are both legitimate precedents that were applicable to the bench on vacation.