Tajinder Pal Bagga and Kumar Vishwas are relieved

New Delhi: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday dismissed two separate FIRs registered against BJP Leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga and former Aam Aadmi party (AAP) leader Kumar Vishwas.

A panel of judges, Anoop Chitkara, passed two separate orders after hearing the petitions separately.

On April 6, 2022, Bagga had appealed to the Supreme Court over the complaint of AAP Punjab spokesman and head of Lok Sabha, Dr. Sunny Singh Ahluwalia to dismiss an FIR registered against him.

The complaint related to a statement allegedly made by Bagga and said it constituted an incitement to inflict violence, use of force or imminent injury on Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP members in a pre-designed, well-planned and orchestrated manner.

The Punjab Police had booked Bagga on many charges including encouraging enmity between different groups based on religion, race, place of birth etc., acts detrimental to maintaining harmony, and utterances which incited or encouraged enmity, hatred or malevolence between classes, including the Indian Penal Code.

Senior attorneys RS Rai and Chetan Mittal, and attorneys Mayank Aggarwal and Gautam Dutt, acting for Bagga, called for the FIR’s dismissal, claiming that the FIR’s registration was utterly indecent. Ahluwalia withheld the actual statement and only referred to some parts of it to register the FIR, they said.

“There is nothing in the statement that would constitute a criminal offence. There is no intimidation or incitement to violence… the statement must be honored in the context in which it is made. It is just to say that the protests and demonstrations against him will continue until Kejriwal apologizes for his statement, which the petitioner considered offensive,” Bagga’s lawyer further claimed.

In a separate petition, Vishwas had appealed to the High Court on April 26 to overturn the FIR registered against him by Punjab Police for allegedly making inflammatory statements against AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind, among others Kejriwal, had submitted.

On April 12, Rupnagar Police booked Vishwas under sections of the Indian Penal Code for promoting enmity between groups, criminal conspiracy, publication or dissemination of messages with intent to create enmity based on religion or race, etc., on complaint from Narinder Singh .