New Delhi: Actor Allu Arjun spent a night in a local prison last week on being arrested in connection with a woman’s death in a stampede at the premiere of his latest film, Pushpa 2: The Rise. He walked out of jail the following morning after the Telangana High Court’s order to grant him interim bail.
On Friday, the day he was arrested, a bench of Justice Juvvadi Sridevi ruled, “In view of the settled principle of law laid down by the Honourable Supreme Court of India, this Court is of the considered view that it is a fit case for grant of interim bail for a period of four weeks.”
However, legal experts have termed the arrest an “overreach” on the part of the authorities, saying that it departs from established case law on the subject.
Arjun was arrested by the Hyderabad Police due to a stampede that had occurred during the screening of his film at the city’s Sandhya Theatre on 4 December, which had led to the death of a 35-year-old woman, Revathi, and caused injuries to her eight-year-old son, who is currently hospitalised.
Arjun and three others were arrested for offences under Sections 105 and 118(1) read with Section 3(5) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Broadly, these correspond to offences like culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which is punishable with anywhere between 5 and 10 years imprisonment with a fine, and voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means, which is punishable with up to three years imprisonment or a fine of up to Rs 20,000, or both.
Besides this, Section 3(5) of the BNS, which is analogous to Section 34 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code, relates to acts done by several persons with a common intention, and states, “When a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all, each of such persons is liable for that act in the same manner as if it were done by him alone.”
Following his arrest, Arjun was produced in a local court, which remanded him to 14 days of judicial custody. However, his lawyers moved the high court and secured interim bail.
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How it unfolded in court
The Telangana High Court, acting on the plea filed by Arjun’s lawyers seeking a stay on further proceedings, granted temporary relief to the actor, allowing him bail for four weeks.
Examining the case records, the court said that the theatre management had sent a letter to the concerned Assistant Commissioner of Police on 2 December, seeking security measures at the theatre in light of the arrival of the film’s team.
Noting that the ACP had affixed his seal on this letter, the court pointed out that the film’s production unit had also sent a letter on 4 December, seeking permission for the premiere along with safety precautions.
Senior advocate S. Niranjan Reddy argued that his client (Arjun) is a distinguished actor known for his “exemplary contributions” to Telugu cinema. However, the “tragically uncontrollable surge of the crowd” led to the unfortunate death of the complainant’s wife and injuries to their child, the lawyer said, adding that since they were sitting in the theatre’s lower balcony, they experienced severe breathing difficulties owing to overcrowding and suffocation.
It was also contended that the incident happened due to the theatre management’s failure to arrange proper security measures and there were insufficient police officials deployed to control the large gathering. The lawyers also argued that attributing criminal liability to the actor due to his presence at the site would amount to an abuse of the legal process, adding that he also lacked mens rea (intention to commit a crime).
On the other hand, the Telangana government said that there were serious allegations against Arjun and that he was not entitled to relief. The representatives argued that Arjun had proceeded towards Sandhya Theatre to watch the premiere, without getting prior permission from the police and knowing well that it could lead to an untoward incident, and that is why he is liable to be prosecuted.
This, however, is not the only case where an actor was accused of causing a stampede.
SRK’s case
In 2017, on promoting his film Raees at the Vadodara railway station, which triggered a stampede, actor Shah Rukh Khan was accused under Sections 336, 337 and 338 of the IPC, which relate to acts endangering life or personal safety of others, causing hurt by acts endangering life or personal safety, and causing “grievous hurt” by acts endangering life or personal safety.
During the stampede that occurred when Khan and the film’s production team were travelling from Mumbai to Delhi by train, a man reportedly lost his life. Consequently, a Vadodara court had taken cognisance of the FIR filed against Khan and initiated proceedings against him, but the Gujarat High Court, in April 2022, had quashed the case against Khan. In doing so, it said that the person who had filed the case against Khan had no connection with the alleged incident.
Subsequently, a two-judge bench of the top court also upheld this Gujarat High Court order and allowed relief to the actor by quashing the 2017 case against him.
‘Overreach’
Merely because Arjun attended a premiere we can’t say he had an intention to cause somebody’s death, said Delhi-based lawyer Nikhil Mehra. “Typically, in such cases, the offence of death by negligence is attracted, but that’s nearly impossible to attribute to the actor in this case. Did he take any specific action to cause death? No, he didn’t.”
Mehra told ThePrint, “He also had no intention to cause the stampede, and intention is a key ingredient in the offence under Section 118, which relates to the offence of voluntarily causing grievous hurt. Even when stampedes occurred at religious gatherings, like the Kumbh Mela in 2013 and in Hathras in July this year, prohibitory orders were imposed. Instead, section 125 of the BNS, which deals with reckless or negligent actions that endanger the life or personal safety of others, should have been invoked, but since it attracts a very low punishment, they did not do that.”
Mehra also pointed to guidelines given by the Allahabad High Court in the 2013 case concerning the Kumbh Mela stampede, where it had directed the preparation of a detailed crowd management plan by the Uttar Pradesh government, among other measures. However, he added that such guidelines won’t apply to premieres as they are not open events but ticketed ones.
Dubbing the Telangana police’s actions as an “overreach”, he said that there cannot be any basis for attributing intention for causing hurt in this case. “Moreover, no sections relating to negligence were invoked. In any event, I don’t believe that negligence could be attributed to Allu Arjun merely by his presence, unless he had received prior instruction or advice not to attend or to provide prior intimation in the event that he wished to attend.”
Advocate Sarim Naved, who practices before the Supreme Court, told ThePrint, “The offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder has been invoked in Arjun’s case. The difference between murder and culpable homicide is that in the former there is an intention to cause death, while in the latter the intention might not be present, but the knowledge that something like this could happen was there.”
Naved explained, “One of the cases that come to mind is the 2023 stampede at Mathura, which led the Allahabad High Court, to pass an order directing live-streaming of prayers at the Bankey Bihari temple in Vrindavan during Janmashtami this year. It’s nothing short of an overreach because how would you have foreseen that because of you being there, a stampede would occur.”
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Allu belongs in jail. He should be locked up permanently. At least that would spare us all from idiotic movies like Pushpa.
In Pushpa, he comes across as a homeless beggar who thinks too highly of himself. The dance sequences are reminiscent of the soft porn south Indian films of the yesteryears.