SC grants interim bail to comedian Munawar Faruqui

The Supreme Court Friday granted interim bail to standup comic Munawar Faruqui in a case accusing him of allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

Faruqui had challenged the Madhya Pradesh High Court order which had rejected his bail application on January 28. He had filed a writ petition as well as a Special Leave to Appeal (SLP), and both were heard by a bench of Justices R F Nariman and B R Gavai.

The bench also stayed the production warrant of Uttar Pradesh Police against Faruqui in a separate case.

The Court issued notice to the Madhya Pradesh government while observing that the law laid down by the Supreme Court in its 2014 judgment in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar was not followed and procedure under Section 41 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was not complied with, according to Bar& Bench.

The Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh HC had observed that evidence collected until now shows that “outraging religious feelings of a class of citizens of India with deliberate intendment” were made by the applicants.

The HC said, “The evidence/material collected so far suggest that in an organised public show under the garb of standup comedy at a public place on commercial lines, prima facie; scurrilous, disparaging utterances, outraging religious feelings of a class of citizens of India with deliberate intendment were made by the applicants.”