Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh High Court Thursday ordered a court-monitored probe into the FIR against minister Kunwar Vijay Shah for remarks aimed at Army Col Sofiya Qureshi. It deemed the move necessary to ensure a fair probe in accordance with the law and sans extraneous pressures.
The court made the observation after pointing out that the FIR registered by Madhya Pradesh police was a “gross subterfuge” on the part of the state as it was drawn in a manner “so as to assist the suspect Vijay Shah”.
A two-judge bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Anuradha Shukla took up the matter suo motu Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Shah in a speech in Mhow referred to Col Qureshi as the ‘sister of Pakistani terrorists’ who carried out the Pahalgam killings. Shah is tribal affairs minister in the Mohan Yadav government and an eight-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from the reserved Harsud assembly constituency.
The court had ordered state police to register an FIR against Shah under sections 152 (act that endangers sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India), 196 (promotion of enmity between different groups) and 197 (assertions prejudicial to national integration) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Police complied with the directions by registering an FIR against Shah at Manpur police station, but failed to reproduce a record of the minister’s controversial speech and explain why it attracted relevant sections in the FIR. The FIR merely reproduced one short paragraph of the court order in which the DGP was instructed to register the FIR under relevant sections.
As the matter came up for hearing Thursday, the two-judge bench observed, “This is gross subterfuge on the part of the state. The FIR has been drawn in a manner so as to assist the suspect Mr Vijay Shah to be able to have the FIR quashed on a later date.”
The court elaborated that the law relating to the quashing of the FIR is well-settled wherein the contents of paragraph 12 which provides for description of the actions of the accused/suspect that constitute an offence has not been procured in this particular paragraph. “This FIR has been registered in such a manner leaving sufficient space open so that if it is challenged under erstwhile section 482 of CrPC (section 528 BNSS), the same may be quashed because it is deficient in material particulars of the actions which constitutes each of the specific offences,” the court said.
It added that to nip this subterfuge in the bud, the entire court order dated 14 May—specifying Vijay Shah’s speech and the offence it thereby attracted—be read as paragraph 12 of the FIR for all judicial, quasi judicial and investigating process henceforth. The court further emphasised that, “If the case is not duly monitored, the police would not investigate fairly in the interest of justice in accordance with law. Under the circumstances, this Court feels compelled to ensure that it monitors the investigation without interfering in the independence of the investigating agency but only to the extent of monitoring that it acts fairly in accordance with law without being influenced by any extraneous pressures or directions.”
It subsequently pointed out that while it has desisted from embarking on a probe to find out who is responsible in the chain of command in the state police for this clumsy attempt, the court shall endeavour to find this out in future proceedings. The matter is scheduled for hearing again on 16 May.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)