The Ludhiana police landed in a tricky and awkward situation on Wednesday after two of its personnel were rushed to Mumbai to serve a notice to filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma under Section 66A of IT Act which was struck down by Supreme Court of India on Tuesday.
More so, the policemen including an assistant sub-inspector Balbir Singh and a constable boarded the train for Mumbai on Tuesday as Daba police was not aware of the latest ruling of Supreme Court.
The two will be reaching Mumbai by Thursday and will return after serving the notice to Varma following a FIR that was registered against him by followers of Dera Baba Ram Rahim Singh.
The complication in the case has further increased as the FIR was registered under section 66A (sending offensive messages by the means of computer) of IT Act along with section 298 of IPC (hurting the religious feelings of a person). But since Verma was booked for posting tweets on Twitter, the Ludhiana police is in a fix on whether those tweets can be considered as an offence or it is a part of freedom of speech.
SHO Daba police Jatinder Singh talking to The Indian Express said, “I came back on duty on Thursday and we were not aware of the SC ruling and policemen boarded the train to Mumbai. Section 298 of IPC is bailable and they were sent to serve notice to Varma under section 66A and 298 of IPC. Now they are on the way and we are discussing with legal advisors on what to do next.”
When contacted, Naveen Singla, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Ludhiana said, “We granted permission to policemen to go Mumbai three days back and ruling came yesterday. Now it is a tricky situation where either court will give us the permission to quash the case under section 66A or we have to take legal opinion on whether tweets posted on Twitter will come under 298 IPC or not. The section 298 of IPC is bailable and non-cognizable though and now complete case needs to be reviewed for further action. Till now policemen traveling to Mumbai have been asked to serve notice and come back.”
On March 1 this year Dera follower of Ram Rahim Singh filed FIR against Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma for hurting the religious sentiments of Dera followers through his tweets against film MSG and Ram Rahim Singh.
In a series of tweets on February 13, Varma on his official Twitter account tweeted:
Indian Express | March 26, 2015
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