Karnataka High Court stays FIR against man who sent out wedding invites with 'Vote for Modi' message

The Karnataka High Court recently stayed all criminal proceedings initiated against a man who printed a message on his wedding invitation card asking people to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

On November 11, Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the interim stay order and also issued notice to the Karnataka government and a polling officer, the original complainant in the case, seeking their responses on a quashing petition filed by one Shivaprasad, a resident of Dakshin Kannada district.

The Court also said that the accused seemed to have booked for "strange offence".

"The petitioners/ accused are alleged of a strange offence. The first petitioner prints an invitation card of his own wedding and prints a posts script which read as the 'the gift that you would give me in the marriage is vote for Narendra Modi'. This is said to be an offence under Section 127A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951," the Court noted while staying the criminal proceedings against Shivaprasad.

Shivaprasad was booked by the police under Section 188 (disobedience to public servant's order) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 127A of the Representation of People Act (RP Act) on April 25 this year after the election officer, one Sandesh KN, registered a complaint against him.

As per the complaint, in the invitation cards for his wedding, Shivaprasad had printed a line saying, “Voting for Modi is the gift for my wedding.”

This, the complainant said, was in breach of the election of code of conduct rules.

In his petition filed through advocate Vinod Kumar, the petitioner claimed that his invitation card was printed on March 1 this year, which was much before the time that the code of conduct was imposed in light of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

The Election Commission declared the calendar of events for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections only on March 16 and the complaint was made by the respondent election officer around a month after that on April 19, the petitioner said.

He further told the Court that following the election officer’s complaint, the magistrate’s court, without following procedure and without any application of mind, granted permission for registration of an FIR against both the petitioner and one Balakrishna A, the owner of the card printing agency that had printed Shivaprasad’s wedding invitation cards.

The petitioner’s counsel argued that the RP Act is applicable only when the code of conduct is in effect. He further said that the Magistrate failed to comply with the provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and thus, the FIR registered against him was “bad in law.”

The petitioner urged the Court to pass an interim order staying all proceedings in the case until the matter is heard finally.

Justice Nagaprasanna proceeded to stay the criminal proceedings and issued notice to the State and the polling officer.

"The learned counsel for the petitioner takes this Court through the documents appended to the petition to demonstrate that the printing of the invitation was long before the declaration of elections even and therefore, it would not make an offence under Section 127A of the Act, as such acts were required to be done only during the election and not prior to the election. Therefore, there shall be an interim order of stay of all further proceedings qua the petitioners, till the next date of hearing,” the High Court order said.

The matter will be heard next on December 12 this year.