10 Lakhs Costs imposed on Vishal Dadlani, Tehseen Poonwalla for Tweets mocking Jain Monk [Read Judgment]

In an odd turn of events, the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently found it appropriate to impose Rs 10 lakhs as costs each on musician Vishal Dadlani and political activist Tehseen Poonwalla for a series of tweets in 2016 mocking Jain monk Tarun Sagar, although the Court admitted that no criminal offence was made out in the case..The judgment passed to this effect by Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan on Monday states,.“… it would be appropriate to impose the costs of `10 lacs each on the petitioner – Vishal Dadlani and the petitioner – Tehseen Poonawala, so that in future they may not mock at any head of a religious sect, just to gain publicity on social media like Twitter.“.Dadlani and Poonwalla had filed petitions to quash a criminal case lodged after they had criticised the Jain monk following a speech made by him in the Haryana Legislative Assembly. On August 26, 2016, Sagar had been invited by the State to make a speech to mark the golden jubilee celebrations of the legislative assembly..Dadlani took to Twitter the following day to criticise the monk’s appearance at the assembly and his speech while registering his objection to religion in governance. The Court summed up the content of Dadlani’s twitter thread,.“Vishal Dadlani criticized his lifestyle as Jain Munis’ of a particular sect (Digambar Jain) stay nude as a part of their religious belief as well as the action of the Haryana Government in calling a religious Guru in the Legislative Assembly. These tweets started on 27.08.2016 and he called Jain Muni’s speech in Legislative Assembly as absurd, non-sense and said that he should have the education to have clothes on.”.Poonwalla also put out similar critical tweets the same day. Further, he also queried why women are shamed when they are semi-nude, whereas monks are termed holy when they “walk nude”. As recorded in the Court’s judgment,.“The petitioner – Tehseen Poonawala has even put semi-nude photograph of a lady by way of a Photoshop with the Jain Muni Tarun Sagar, on his tweet/page and has raised a finger towards his character by comparing him with a slut. .Following public outcry by a number of netizens, Dadlani eventually apologized for his tweets. To this end, he issued a public statement of apology and also met the Jain monk personally to seek his forgiveness. Through media interviews, Sagar also expressed that he had forgiven both Dadlani and Poonwalla for their tweets, remarking that both persons had made the comments ignorant of the Jain lifestyle and ways..Nevertheless, a non-Jain third party filed an FIR against both Dadlani and Poonwalla accusing them of offences under Sections 295A (outraging religious feelings), 153A (inciting enmity between different religious, ethnic etc. groups) or 509 (outraging the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)..Poonwalla, on his part, submitted that he did not regret making the tweets. He contended that by doing so, he had not committed any criminal offence..Before the Court, both petitioners argued that the ingredients of the IPC sections charges against them were not made out. Inter alia, it was pointed out that there was no mens rea to commit the said offences..Interestingly, the Court agreed with the petitioners that they were guilty of any of the IPC offences charged. To this end, the Court’s judgment notes,.In the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in S. Khusboo’s case (supra), it is held that it is not the task of the criminal law to punish individuals merely for expressing unpopular views and the threshold for placing reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression is indeed a very high one and there should be a presumption in favour of the accused in such cases ….This view was further reiterated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Priya Prakash Varrier’s case (supra), while quashing the criminal prosecution that there should be a calculated tendency adopted by the accused to insult or to disturb public order to invite the wreath of Section 295-A of IPC. Therefore, from the bare perusal of the FIR, offence under Section 295-A IPC is not made out ….… A bare perusal of the FIR, nowhere reflects that there was mens rea on the part of the petitioners to promote any such enmity as defined under Section 153-A IPC ….… From the bare perusal of the FIR, even Section 509 of IPC is not made out as in the tweets of the petitioners, there is no gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman. Though in one of the tweet of the petitioner – Tehseen Poonawala, he has put a photograph of an unknown lady in semi nude condition with the photograph of Jain Muni Tarun Sagar and it is stated that if the Jain Muni can walk naked then why a woman should be called a slut, however, the same is not intended to insult any woman in particular as the offence under Section 509 of IPC referred to intending to insult the modesty of any woman….… Even no offence under Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2000 is made out from the bare perusal of the FIR as already held in foregoing paragraph that neither intention nor mens rea is made out from the bare perusal of the FIR as the intention to violate privacy is missing.”.The Court also notes that no person from the Jain community had approached the police to give their statements against the two petitioners. This was largely attributed to the Jain moral philosophy of non-violence and forgiveness. Additionally, the Jain monk, Tarun Sagar had also appealed to his followers to forgive the two petitioners for their comments. Sagar himself had passed away in September 2018..Further, the state, in this case, had not given sanction to prosecute the case under Section 196, IPC, which is required in cases falling under Section 295A, IPC. This, despite the fact that the FIR had been registered over two years prior. The Court noted that this demonstrates that even the State is not interested in prosecuting the case..All the same, the Court decided to impose Rs 10 lakhs as deterrent costs on both Dadlani and Poonwalla, apparently invoking its powers under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973..The direction was issued after taking note of of an allied suggestion to issue a deterrent direction against the petitioners by Sandeep Jain – a Jain advocate who was called on to assist the Court as an intervenor. The Court observed,.“… the question now arises that in view of above, the petitions be simply allowed or in exercise of power under Section 482 Cr.P.C., justice can also be done to the followers of Jain religion. If the contribution made by the petitioners towards poor people is compared to the contribution made by Jain Muni Tarun Sagar, it is apparent that the petitioners have played a mischief to gain publicity without having much to their credit..In recent years, the country has witnessed large scale violent protest on incitement made by using social media platform, thereby, causing extensive damage to public property..However, the preachings of Jain Muni Tarun Sagar about non-violence, sacrifices and forgiveness, has avoided repetition of such like protest.”.As a result, the Court’s final order reads,.“Accordingly, the present petitions are allowed; the FIR No.0310 dated 28.08.2016 registered under Sections 295-A, 153-A and 509 IPC (Section 66E of the I.T. Act, added later on) at Police station Ambala Cantt. Haryana, and all other proceedings arising therefrom are ordered to be quashed subject to payment of costs on or before 01.09.2019, failing which these petitions will be deemed to be dismissed.“.The petitioners in the case were represented by Senior Advocate RS Cheema, assisted by Advocates Arsheep Singh Cheema and Satish Sharma; Advocates Karuna Nandy and Amandeep Singh Talwar. Additional Advocate General Kuldeep Tiwari appeared for the State of Haryana whereas, Advocate Khusbir K Bhullar appeared for the complainant. .Read the Judgment: