The Karnataka High Court Today (March 17) canceled the FIR against Rahul Shivshankar, ruling that his post on X about religious minority funds did not violate any laws. The judge stated that his statements lacked elements of hate speech under IPC Section 153A.
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BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court today canceled a hate speech case against news anchor Rahul Shivshankar. This case was related to his post on X (formerly Twitter) about the Karnataka government’s decision to allocate funds for religious minorities.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed this order after hearing Shivshankar’s plea. The news anchor had approached the court to cancel the First Information Report (FIR) that was filed against him.
“Criminal petition allowed. FIR stands quashed,”
-the judge said while giving the final order.
Earlier, on September 27, 2024, the judge had given temporary relief to Shivshankar in this case.
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The issue started when a complaint was filed against Shivshankar by N. Ambrish, a city municipal council member from Kolar, Karnataka. The complaint led to an FIR, which the anchor later challenged in court.
During the hearings, the State government argued that Shivshankar had “promoted enmity among religious groups” by claiming that funds meant for Hindu groups were being used for “the development of Waqf properties, Haj Bhavan in Mangalore, and the development of Christian places of worship.”
The government also alleged that Shivshankar had a “history” of posting such content on social media without verification.
However, Shivshankar’s lawyer strongly defended him, stating that the journalist was only doing his duty by sharing budget-related facts with the public. His lawyer also argued that the CID (Crime Investigation Department) was targeting Shivshankar because of a TV show he had hosted on the MUDA scam.
When granting interim relief, Justice Nagaprasanna had said that there was no clear proof that Shivshankar’s post violated Section 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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The judge further clarified that Shivshankar was only interpreting the budget and that his post did not contain anything that could be considered a crime under Section 153A.
“The language deployed or sentences used in the considered view of the court would not meet the ingredients of Section 153A or 505 of IPC as elucidated by the Apex court in the case of Javed Ahmad Hajam v State of Maharashtra,”
-the Court had stated in its interim order from September 2024.
CASE TITLE:
RAHUL SIVASANKAR AND CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT & ANR.
CRL.P 2457/2024.
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