Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday quashed two different FIRs registered by Punjab police against Delhi BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga and poet and former AAP leader Kumar Vishwas.
Both cases were registered after the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government took over in Punjab for their allegedly provocative remarks ahead of the February assembly elections in the state. A bench of justice Anoop Chitkara heard the petitions separately and passed two separate orders.
While Bagga was booked on April 1, 2022, by Mohali police for allegedly making provocative statements, promoting enmity and criminal intimidation, the Roopnagar police had booked Kumar Vishwas on April 12 for allegedly promoting enmity between groups, criminal conspiracy, publishing or circulating a news report with intent to create enmity, on the grounds of religion etc.
It is pertinent to mention here that Bagga’s arrest from Delhi by Punjab police had also whipped up a major controversy with allegations that he was picked up without following due process.
However, in a dramatic twist in the events, the Haryana police stopped the Punjab police convoy in Kurukshetra and his custody was given to Delhi police after a day-long ugly face-off between the police of three states.
Subsequently, the Punjab police returning empty-handed with a criminal case registered against them in Delhi for allegedly kidnapping Bagga also made headlines. Bagga had later secured interim protection from the Punjab and Haryana high court against arrest.
Bagga moved the high court on April 6, seeking the quashing of an FIR registered against him on the complaint of AAP Punjab spokesperson and Lok Sabha in-charge, Dr Sunny Singh Ahluwalia.
The complainant alleged Bagga’s statement constituted instigation/incitement to cause violence, use of force or imminent hurt to Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP members in an orchestrated manner.
Appearing for Bagga, senior advocates R S Rai and Chetan Mittal with advocates Mayank Aggarwal and Gautam Dutt, held that the registration of the FIR was malafide and that Ahluwalia intentionally had concealed the actual statement and referred only to some parts of it to get the FIR registered.
Vishwas had moved the high court on April 26, 2022, and sought the quashing of the FIR registered against him.
Vishwas’ counsels, senior advocates Chetan Mittal and R S Rai, along with advocates Mayank Aggarwal and Rubina Virmani, said that he was a Hindi poet, a founder-member of AAP and a former member of its national executive body and was wrongly involved in the FIR. They held that it was sheer abuse of the process of law and alleged that it was politically motivated.
In Vishwas’ case, the court said that in a democracy, it was the pre-election times when people’s information matters the most and that petitioner is a social educator, while sharing the alleged exchange that took place with his ex-associate (Kejriwal), could not be said to have spewed venom.
