[BREAKING] Yati Narsinghanand granted bail in Haridwar hate speech case

The Haridwar Sessions Court on Monday granted bail to Yati Narsinghanand, accused of delivering a hate speech against Muslims at a Dharam Sansad event held last year..The order was passed today by District and Sessions Judge Bharat Bhushan Pandey. The bail application was allowed subject to furnishing two sureties of ₹50,000 and personal bond of the same amount. The Court additionally laid down the following bail conditions:- The accused is ordered that he shall file an undertaking before the Magistrate to the effect that after this order shall not make any speech disturbing the hatred and communal harmony in the society, nor shall be part of any such event, gathering whose main object is to promote enmity and maintain harmony between different groups or to have an adverse effect on the maintenance of harmony or to commit offenses similar in nature to the offense charged;- During investigation, on being called by the Investigation Officer (IO) to cooperate in the investigation, he will appear before the IO as per his instructions, otherwise, on the 10th of every month during the investigation, he will give information about his presence in the local police station;- He shall not indulge in inducement, intimidation directly or indirectly during the course of the investigation, nor shall he prejudicially affect the witnesses;- During investigation, he shall not go abroad without the permission of the concerned court/magistrate and if the accused is in possession of a passport, he shall hand over his passport to the investigating officer within seven days."On fulfilling the above conditions within 7 days by the accused and on filing an undertaking of the above intention before the learned Magistrate and on filing two local sureties of ₹50,000 and a personal bond of the same amount to the satisfaction of the Magistrate concerned, he shall be enlarged on bail," the order said.The order in this bail application will not have any effect on the merits of the case, the Court added. Advocate Narayan Har Gupta appeared for Narsinghanand..Narsinghanand was arrested on January 16 and was booked under Sections 295 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 509 (intending to insult the modesty of any woman), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (insult intended to provoke breach of peace) and 153A ((promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc) of the Indian Penal Code.Earlier, the Magistrate had rejected his bail plea.The Uttarakhand High Court is hearing a plea seeking quashing of the FIR registered in relation to the Haridwar Dharam Sansad hate speech..The Supreme Court is separately hearing a plea seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the alleged hate speech at the Dharam Sansad.Attorney General KK Venugopal had granted consent to activist Shachi Nelli for initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against Narsinghanand over his recent derogatory remarks against the Supreme Court..[Read Order]