HC quashes FIR against Gurmeet Ram Rahim: ‘no evidence of distortion’

The Jalandhar rural police had registered a case against the Dera head on the complaint of Jassi Tallan, president of Shri Guru Ravidas Tiger Force, on March 7, 2023. According to the complaint lodged at Patara police station, Gurmeet Ram Rahim made certain incorrect remarks about Shri Guru Ravidas and Satguru Kabir that had hurt the sentiments of the community.

After the registration of FIR, the Dera chief through his battery of counsel, Senior Advocate Sonia Mathur with advocates Amit Tiwari, Harish Chabra, Abhishek Sanghi and Jitender Khurana, had moved the HC seeking its quashing, contending that the satsang (religious discourse) where the alleged statements were made was organised on February 28, 2016, and there had been no complaint from any person in the past seven years.

It was also submitted by the Dera counsel that in order to “falsely implicate the petitioner in issues having potential to disturb social fabric on the lines of religion, sect, and caste etc”, the impugned FIR was registered…and “a portion of the speech wherein a story sourced from historical texts/books was narrated was picked up in isolation to deliberately create a narrative that sentiments of members of the Scheduled Caste community were hurt”.

On hearing the matter, Justice Kaul analysed the discourse delivered by the petitioner in conjunction with various historical texts, and also examined whether the petitioner while delivering the discourse in question, distorted or twisted the historical texts to intentionally hurt the sentiments of the followers of Sant Kabir Das and Guru Ravidas.

“No evidence of malice or deliberate intent to harm any individual or community while delivering the discourse is discernible. On the contrary, the discourse of the petitioner, as already observed earlier, aligns with the various historical texts annexed with the petition. The only key distinction, if any, is that the petitioner has used local colloquial terms while delivering the discourse. However, this in no way would imply any disrespect, malice or intentional affront to the followers of Sant Kabir Das and Guru Ravidas”, noted the HC.

Justice Kaul held that the complainant while lodging the FIR has selectively extracted disconnected segments of the discourse and presented them without proper context.

“Moreover, neither the State nor the complainant has contested the contents of the historical texts annexed with the petition. Since the narrative is not a product of the petitioner’s imagination and does not contain any exaggerated elements, it cannot be said to have been delivered with any malicious intent,” the Bench observed.

Furthermore, the Bench said that the Dera chief claims himself to be a self- professed spiritual guru and had delivered this discourse to his congregation of devotees seven years prior to the registration of the FIR in question. It remains unchallenged by the respondents that in the preceding seven years, following the discourse in 2016, no complaint was received from any quarter.

The Bench said that when people file false and frivolous complaints, it amounts to abuse of the process of law and it is also crucial to emphasise that groundless and trivial criminal cases damage the credibility of the criminal justice system. “Hence, when on an examination of the allegations levelled in the FIR, the Court does not find any apparent ingredient of the offence alleged, it is incumbent upon this Court to step in and put a lid on the ongoing criminal proceedings against an accused,” the order read.

Thus allowing Dera Sacha Sauda chief’s plea to quash the FIR, the HC said that on a comparison with various books and historical texts, particularly the discourse in question, it is evident that neither there is any mens rea (criminal intent) on part of the petitioner nor any distortion or exaggeration of the incident pertaining to Sant Kabir Das and Guru Ravidas to such an extent that it could have offended their followers.