Hijab Verdict : Man Accused Of Threatening HC Judges Moves Supreme Court To Quash Or Transfer Second FIR

A Supreme Court Bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Bela M. Trivedi on Wednesday issued notice in a plea moved by a man who allegedly threatened the judges of the Karnataka High Court who delivered the Hijab Verdict seeking to quash or transfer the second FIR filed against him in Karnataka to Madurai.

The petitioner is a state auditing committee member of the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath. He had addressed a small gathering of the general public at Madurai in which he was accused of making an inflammatory speech regarding the controversial Hijab verdict. Consequently, an FIR was registered against him in Madurai. The petitioner was duly arrested and was remanded to judicial custody on March 19 and has been in custody since then.

Meanwhile, the video of the impugned speech was widely circulated and one Sudha Kathwa filed a complaint against the petitioner in Karnataka. On the strength of this complaint, a second FIR was registered in Karnataka.

Senior Advocate R Basant and Advocate A Velan appeared for the petitioner.

The plea filed through Advocate A.Lakshminarayanana stated that the petitioner would be put to tremendous hardship and it would be impossible for him to approach various courts/police stations in two different states in respect of such FIRs. Furthermore, he argued that the continuation of investigation in both the FIRs parallel by two different investigating agencies would tantamount to abuse of due process.

"The Petitioner is filing the present petition in extremely urgent circumstances as multiple (Two) FIRs have been registered against him in different parts (Madurai, Tamil Nadu and Bangalore, Karnataka) of the country. Two parallel investigations are being undertaken in two different jurisdictions by two different investigating agencies in regard to the same cause of action."

Hence, he moved the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 21.

It was pointed out that in similar circumstances where multiple FIRs with near-identical allegations were lodged against an accused, this Court had quashed the subsequent FIRs in Arnab Ranjan Goswami v UoI [W.P.(Crl) 130 of 2020].

The petitioner also urged that it is a trite principle of law that a second FIR is not maintainable on the basis of the same set of facts. Moreover, it was recalled that the right to a fair investigation is enshrined in right to life guaranteed in Article 21.

He contended that two parallel investigations undertaken in two different jurisdictions by two different investigating agencies in regard to the same cause of action was violative of his right to a fair investigation.

Therefore, the plea sought an urgent relief of quashing the second FIR registered in Karnataka pending this petition, and to grant an injunction restraining the filing of any further FIRs in the future on the basis of the same cause of action.  Alternatively, it was prayed that the FIR registered at Karnataka be transferred to Madurai, Tamil Nadu for the purpose of investigation

Case Title: Rahamathulla v. State of Tamil Nadu & Ors.