High Court grants anticipatory bail in ‘hate speech’ case

MP, 14 Nov 2024, Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted anticipatory bail to a woman accused of making derogatory comments against a religious community in an interview video. 

During the hearing of the case at the bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Gaurang Kanth, the state’s counsel produced a transcript of the videos. 

The state’s counsel contended that the video contains extremely derogatory comments which hurt the sentiment of a religious community. State opposed the prayer for anticipatory bail. 

The petitioner contended that the uploaded videos have been deleted and that she did not make imputations which may hurt the religious sentiment of a community. 

She contended that custodial interrogation for progress of investigation is not necessary and prayed for anticipatory bail. 

The court observed that the petitioner has freedom of speech but that does not entitle her to make insinuations against others. 

“Contrarian views with regards to inter-religious communities and the idea of secularism, which is a cherished foundation of the Indian constitution, is the heartbeat of our democracy,” the court said. 

The court noted that the videos were deleted from the online news portal and opined that custodial interrogation for progress of investigation is not necessary. 

The petitioner was granted anticipatory bail. On the prayer that a condition be imposed on the petitioner barring her from giving such interviews in future, the court refused to and observed that to impose a condition restraining her right to give interviews or air her views would amount to pre-censorship which is not permissible in law. 

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/high-court-grants-anticipatory-bail-in-hate-speech-case-586773