Prashant Bhushan again in the line of SC fire for equating Ramayana to ‘Opium’


Special Correspondent

New Delhi : Senior Lawyer Prashant Bhushan has been rebuked by Supreme Court on his tweet describing Ramayana and Mahabharata as ‘Opium’.

Bhushan moved to SC seeking cancellation of the FIR registered against him by Gujarat Police over his controversial tweet. Bhushan had tweeted on March 27th saying, “As crores starve & walk hundreds of miles home due to forced lockdown, our heartless ministers celebrate consuming & feeding the opium of Ramayana & Mahabharata to the people!”.

After hearing the arguments, bench of J. Ashok Bhushan & J. Ashok Khanna said, “Anybody can watch anything on TV. How can you say people cannot watch this and that? How can you object to people watching TV?”

Even though SC rebuked him, top court has prohibited any action and arrest action against Bhushan, noting that no coercive action be taken against the petitioner. The Court proceedings were conducted through Video Conferencing, and Advocate Dushyant Dave represented Bhushan on the said matter.

An FIR was lodged in the Bhaktinagar police station of Rajkot city by a retired Army personnel Jaydev Joshi for hurting Hindu religious sentiment by using “opium” with Ramayana and Mahabharata. The FIR was registered under section 34 (criminal act done by several persons), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or the religious beliefs), 505(1) (publishing or circulating any statement, rumour or report which can cause fear and alarm amongst people) and section 120 -B (criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code.)

Back then, the police had also registered a case against Ashleen Mathew and Kannan Gopinathan for supporting Prashant Bhushan’s tweet and inciting people. In the complaint made by Captain Jaidev Joshi, an ex-army officer, it was said that oaths of religious texts are administered before the testimony in the courts. If these texts are considered opiate intoxication, then the meaning of this testimony will be lost.

Meanwhile, in the current lockdown, the Ramayana broadcasted on Doordarshan has broken all the records of the last five years in the history of TV and also registered the highest ever 7.7 crore viewers in a day, for any global show like Game of Thrones (1.74 Cr).  

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