Comedian Bharti Singh moves HC, seeks quashing of FIR

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 26

Just three days after the Punjab and Haryana High Court directed that coercive steps would not be taken against Raveena Tandon and Farah Khan in a case alleging hurting of religious sentiments, another Bollywood personality, comedian Bharti Singh has filed a petition in the matter.

The petition seeking the quashing of the FIR is scheduled to come up for hearing before Justice Sudip Ahluwalia of the High Court on Monday.

In the petition filed through Abhinav Sood and Pallav Mongia, Bharti Singh too has sought directions to the State of Punjab against the initiation of coercive action during the pendency of the petition.

Taking up a similar petition by Tandon and Khan, Justice Ashok Kumar Verma of the High Court had on January 23 issued notice of motion for March 25 to the State of Punjab and another respondent.

Bharti, too, has sought the quashing on the ground that the FIR was illegal and bad in law. An FIR for deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs was registered under section 295-A of the IPC at Ajnala police station on December 25.

Her counsel submitted that the FIR was illegal, ex-facie bad in law and was required to be quashed. Referring to the allegations in the FIR, Sood submitted in the petition that Bharti was accused of making a joke of a word and playing with religious sentiments of a particular community.

Sood added she was guest/participants in the show telecast on digital platform. Tandon and Bharti, being participant-guests in the show “Back Benchers” had only spelled the word. Going into the background, counsel submitted while Tandon spelt it correctly, Bharti Singh misspelt it. It apparently meant that Bharti Singh did not know the word and was referring to another word in Hindi.