After Sambhaji Bhide’s remarks, PIL seeks guidelines against derogatory utterances about late national leaders

The plea also took exception to recent utterances made about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule and Jawaharlal Nehru, among others.

The PIL was filed on August 3 by Maharashtra Gandhi Smarak Nidhi (MGSN) through its trustee secretary Sandip Jayant Barve along with social activists Dr Kumar Saptarshi and Anvar Rajan.

The petitioners also claimed that some of them have “reservation” and “strong objections” about the ideology of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, “who undoubtedly was a great patriot”. Despite such reservations, petitioners do not approve of any attack on Savarkar as well “for his personal character or personal decision taken by him”, the plea said.

The petitioners claimed that they do not have any personal grievance against Bhide, but were aggrieved by his recent remarks.

The plea was mentioned before a division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upa-dhyaya and Justice Arif S Doctor on Thursday and it is likely to come up for hearing on August 7.

The plea stated, “Unrestricted circulation and forwarding of the video clips of such utterance made by Bhide on WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook and on the other social media platforms, which, if not restricted immediately would have the tendency to disturb social fabric and ethical fabric of our country and feeling aggrieved by such type of utterances by many other persons in respect of many other persons who are dead but who are held in high esteem by their followers.”

“Recently, there are a number of such incidents where deliberately such utterances are made to hurt the feelings of those people who held such dead persons in high esteem. The dead persons are not in a position to controvert because they are dead,” the PIL noted. The petitioners claimed that existing legal framework, including section 499 and 500 of the IPC, which stipulate offence and punishment for criminal defamation “is inadequate to deal” with the issue and “the public tranquility and peace gets a serious threat”, therefore, the plea in HC.

The PIL also said that there are many persons belonging to the same group, religion, caste or gender to which the persons making remarks belong to, however they do not share such views. “Unfortunately, they are not strong enough to voice their concerns or they feel that even if they are right, the majority of the group to which they belong may not like them criticising the person who has made such derogatory remarks,” the plea stated. As a result, “irreparable damage is done to unity in the country”, It added.

The PIL sought to quash and aside the explanation in the section 499 of IPC which stated that the statement may amount to defamation to impute anything to a deceased person, if the imputation would harm the reputation of that person if living, and is intended to be hurtful to the feelings of his family or other relatives.