BHOPAL: High Court, on Tuesday, issued notice to the state government and complainant Dr Deepak Raghuvanshi, General Secretary of Dharam Sanskriti Samiti who had filed FIR against Congress MLA Arif Masood for inflammatory speech. Four weeks time has been given to both to reply in the concerned case.
Congress MLA Arif Masood was granted anticipatory bail on November 27 in the case registered under Section 153 of IPC for his inflammatory speech against Emmanuel Macron at a gathering at Iqbal Maidan in October. The protest rally was held against French President Emmanuel Macron’s alleged anti-Islamic statement against Prophet Mohammad and Islam, following the prophet’s cartoon row in the European country.
Advocate Ajay Gupta, who appeared on behalf of Masood, said, “High Court, today, has issued notices to Dr Deepak Raghuvanshi and state government over Masood’s inflammatory speech case. We have filed a petition to quash FIR under section 482 of IPC in High Court.”
Masood filed a petition under Section 482 of IPC to quash FIR stating Dr Deepak Raghuvanshi was not present at the spot then how can he object over the speech. Masood said the complainant of the second FIR was not present at the place of protest whereas the sub-inspector who lodged the first FIR was present at the said place and the complaint is belatedly lodged as an afterthought which is malicious and contains false text so the second FIR arising out of the same incident is irrelevant.
