Local Court Grants Bail To Yati Narsinghanand In Haridwar Dharam Sansad Case

The Uttarakhand Court (at Haridwar) has granted bail to Yati Narsinghanand, who heads the powerful Dasna Devi temple in Uttar Pradesh, in a case registered against him for his alleged 'Hate Speech' delivered at the Haridwar Dharm Sansad which took place last month.

The Additional District and Sessions Judge Bharat Bhushan Pandey granted him bail as it noted the offences alleged to have been committed by Yati Narsinghanand are punishable up to 3 years of imprisonment.

Against this backdrop, while stressing that bail is a rule and jail is an exception, the Court was of the opinion that the accused deserved bail. It may be noted that the Court also took into account the fact that as far as the criminal history of the accused was concerned, he had not been convicted so far in any cases. 

Importantly, the Court emphasized that the FIR was registered on the complaint made by the informant, who was himself not present at the event, and the FIR didn't contain the name of the accused person. Further, the Court also said that the complaint was made on the basis of the video of the event which was available on Facebook.

"As far as the criminal history of the accused is concerned, the accused has not been convicted in any of the cases so far and that, all the cases are either at the stage of investigation, trial or, charge. Therefore, instead of denying him bail on the basis of sub-judice criminal cases, (he should be granted bail as) bail is a rule and jail is an exception," the Court said as it granted him bail.

The FIR in the case

Essentially, an FIR had been registered against Waseem Rizvi aka Jitendra Narayan Tyagi alleging that during a religious meet, in the name of Dharma Sansad (organized in December 2021) Tyagi and many others had made objectionable and provocative statements against Prophet Mohammad and the religion of Islam.

It was further alleged in the FIR that due to the alleged hate speech delivered by them, the religious sentiments of the informant (Gulbahar Khan) and millions of people who believe in Islam have been hurt.

In pursuance to the registration of FIR, Yati Narsinghanand was booked under Section 153A and 295A IPC. 

Therefore earlier, he moved his bail application before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, however, the same was rejected by the Court while noting that the case of the prosecution was that the speech delivered by Narsinghanand had the potential of spreading communal violence.

The Court had also taken into account the criminal history of Narsinghanand and hence, without commenting upon the merits of the case, the Court had not found any sufficient ground to grant him bail and therefore, his bail application was rejected.

Now against this order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, he had moved the Sessions Court. 

Arguments before the Sessions Court

Counsel Narayan Har Gupta appeared before the Court and argued that Yati Narsinghanand had no role to play in the live telecast of the said event and the case was instituted by the informant on the basis of the video uploaded on Facebook, in which the accused has no contribution.

It was further argued that this was a matter of investigation as to whether the video clip is in fact original. Counsel Gupta also argued that there is no statement in the First Information Report to the effect that the informant was, in fact, present at event.

Lastly, it was contended that only on the basis of the video clip, the accused was deprived of his personal liberty, while the alleged whole case against the accused is fake and false and is sponsored by religious people. 

It may be noted that in another case, the Uttarakhand Court (at Haridwar) last month denied bail to Yati Narsinghanand in a case registered against him for his alleged offensive and derogatory remarks on Muslim women.

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