Thursday, the Supreme Court told a court in Delhi to give Congress leader Pawan Khera temporary bail. He had been arrested by Assam police for allegedly making bad comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A three-judge panel led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said that Khera would be given interim bail once he was brought before the right magistrate in Delhi.
Khera was on his way to Raipur for the Congress plenary session when he was told to get off the IndiGo flight at Delhi airport and was detained by Delhi Police. After that, Assam Police arrested him because of a case filed at the Haflong police station under several sections of the IPC, including 153A (disturbing religious harmony), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national interest), 500 (punishment for defamation), and 504 (intentional insult with the intent to cause a breach of peace) because of his alleged comments about the prime minister.
The Congress official went to the Supreme Court to ask for help with the multiple FIRs that had been filed against him in Assam, Lucknow, and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh because of what he was said to have said about Prime Minister Modi.
Khera had recently misspelt Prime Minister Modi’s full name, which seemed to be a jab at the business tycoon Gautam Adani and the fight they were in. He said, though, that it was just a slip of the tongue and that no one should worry too much about it.
Abhishek Singhvi, who is also in Khera’s party and is a senior lawyer, told the Supreme Court that the language used at the press conference was wrong and that he wouldn’t stand by it. He also said that the person who asked for the change would apologise in any way.
“He (Khera) has spoken at a news conference. He has said some things that I can’t say in court but that I wouldn’t have said myself.”
Singhvi, on the other hand, said that the multiple FIRs in different states were intentional harassment, and he asked the top court to put all of the FIRs in one place.
Chandrachud told Singhvi that his client has been given protection, but “there has to be some level of discussion.”
The top court sent notices to the states of Assam and Uttar Pradesh, asking them to respond to Khera’s request that the multiple FIRs filed against him in Assam, Lucknow, and Varanasi because of his alleged comments about the prime minister be merged into one.
