Bengaluru: The high court stayed investigation in two criminal cases against a law student from Bengaluru, registered following his tweet over the daylight killing of a woman recently.Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order after hearing Tejaswi Surya, Bengaluru South MP who appeared for petitioner K Kiran in one of the cases, and Girish Bharadwaj, another advocate who represented the student in the second case.Following this, two cases were registered against Kiran, the first in Bantwal police station for offence punishable under Section 353(2) of BNS and the second in High Grounds police station, Bengaluru, under Section 192. Kiran challenged both cases in court.Opposing the petitions, state public prosecutor BN Jagadeesha submitted that the cases were registered a couple of days ago and investigation is still in nascent stage.Justice Nagaprasanna noted that a careful reading of the first part of the tweet carries no express reference to any religion, community, caste or an identifiable group. “It is only after exercise of interpretation and inference, an attempt is made to give it a communal colour. This court is unable to discern, albeit, prima facie, from the language employed, any overt or tacit reference that unmistakably targets a particular community. The courts cannot permit criminality to be inferred by imagination when words themselves refuse to yield such meaning,” the judge added.The second part of the tweet is a comment on govt action, he said. Ordinarily, this court would be slow in interdicting investigation as it is at a nascent stage. Had the impugned tweet borne even a semblance to religious hostility, communal animosity or hatred, this court would have permitted the investigating machinery to proceed in accordance with law, Justice Nagaprasanna pointed out. The essential ingredients that are necessary to attract provisions of the Act are absent in the impugned tweet, he added.
