The Supreme Court on Monday restrained a magistrate from taking cognisance of a chargesheet filed by the Haryana Police’s Special Investigation Team in a case against Ashoka University Associate Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad for his comments about the press briefings on Operation Sindoor, PTI reported.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymala Bagchi also quashed all the proceedings in a second FIR against Mahmudabad, Live Law reported. The court said that no charges should be framed against Mahmudabad.
The order was passed after Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the Haryana Police, told the bench that a closure report was filed in the second case.
Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Mahmudabad, said it was “most unfortunate” that the associate professor had been booked under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, whose validity was under challenge in a separate case.
Section 152 pertains to acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India. Critics have argued that Section 124A, which defined the offence of sedition, was slipped into the law again in the guise of Section 152 when the BNS replaced the Indian Penal Code in July 2024.
“You [respondent] are just persecuting people in this country, that’s all,” Bar and Bench quoted Sibal as saying.
The bench asked Sibal to go through the chargesheet and prepare a chart of the alleged offences, PTI reported. It said that it would consider the submissions on the next date of hearing.
Cases against Mahmudabad
Two cases have been filed against Mahmudabad, who heads the political science department at Ashoka University, for his comments about the media briefings on the Indian military operation against terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir initiated in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
One of the cases was filed based on a complaint by Yogesh Jatheri, general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing in Haryana.
The second case was filed on the basis of a complaint by Renu Bhatia, the chairperson of the Haryana State Women’s Commission.
Mahmudabad was arrested on May 18.
On May 21, the court granted him interim bail. However, it declined to halt the investigation against him. It had also instructed the Haryana police chief to form a Special Investigation Team to look into the meaning of the words used by Mahmudabad.
Additionally, he was barred from posting or publishing content related to the social media posts that are under scrutiny. He was also directed not to comment on the Pahalgam attack and India’s subsequent military response.
Mahmudabad faces charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to acts prejudicial to maintaining communal harmony, making assertions likely to cause disharmony, acts endangering national sovereignty and words or gestures intended to insult a woman’s modesty, among others.
What the professor said
On May 8, in a social media post, Mahmudabad had highlighted the apparent irony of Hindutva commentators praising Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who had represented the Army during the media briefings about the Indian military operation.
“Perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s hate mongering be protected as Indian citizens,” he had said.
Mahmudabad had said that the optics of the press briefings by Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh were important, “but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy”.
The Haryana women’s panel had accused the professor of attempting to “vilify national military actions”.
The panel said that he had ignored its summons on May 14. It further said that when the commission visited the university on May 15, he did not appear before it.
Mahmudabad has said that he only exercised his fundamental right to freedom of speech in order to promote peace and harmony.
The professor maintained that his remarks had been “completely misunderstood” by the commission and that its notice failed to highlight how his posts were “contrary to the right of or laws for women”.
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