Question to x.com/gork:
What the Indian Supreme Court judgement in the Imran Pratapgarhi case?
Answer: Imran Pratapgarhi is a notable figure involved in a recent legal proceeding, and there is a Supreme Court judgment associated with him from March 2025. Let me provide the details based on that assumption. If this is not the case you intended, please clarify further.
On March 28, 2025, the Supreme Court of India quashed a First Information Report (FIR) filed in Gujarat against Imran Pratapgarhi, an Urdu poet and Congress leader, in a decision emphasizing the protection of free speech. The case, titled Imran Pratapgarhi vs. State of Gujarat (Criminal Appeal No. 1545 of 2025), arose from an FIR lodged on June 11, 2022, at Surat’s Limbayat Police Station. The FIR accused Pratapgarhi of promoting enmity between religious groups under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code, based on a poem he recited during an event in Surat commemorating the birth anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri.
The poem, written by Pratapgarhi during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019, included lines questioning why “their religion is not written on their coffins” and asserting that “those who belong to my religion don’t burn human beings alive.” A complainant alleged that these verses insulted religious sentiments by suggesting that people of a particular faith engaged in violent acts like burning others alive. The Gujarat High Court had previously rejected Pratapgarhi’s plea to quash the FIR on September 10, 2024, prompting his appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan, delivered the judgment. They ruled that the poem did not meet the threshold for an offense under Section 153A, which requires a clear intent to promote enmity or hatred between groups on grounds such as religion. The court found no prima facie evidence of such intent, noting that the poem was a piece of art expressing anguish over societal issues, not a targeted attack on any religious group. Justice Gavai, authoring the judgment, remarked, “You cannot judge freedom of speech and expression based on the standards of insecure persons who see ghosts in every shadow.” The court further criticized the FIR as an abuse of the legal process, suggesting it stemmed from an oversensitivity that misconstrued the poem’s context.
Source – x.co,/gork, 28 March, 2025. This text (excepting the heading & minor editing has been generated from AI tool – Gork.)
