Patna HC Quashes Complaint Against Farah Khan Ali For Tweet On Salman Khan Hit-And-Run Case [Read Judgment]

The Patna High Court has quashed a complaint against jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali for a statement she made supporting Bollywood actor Salman Khan in the hit-and-run case.

Farah Khan Ali had apparently stated on twitter that if no one was sleeping on the road, Salman would not have driven over anybody.

She wrote: "The govt should be responsible for housing ppl. If no 1was sleeping on d road in any other country Salman wuld not have driven over anybody... It's like penalising a train driver because someone decided to cross the tracks and got killed in the bargain. #salmankhancase." [sic]

In some TV interviews, she had allegedly made statements that footpath is not for sleeping of pavement dwellers and the roads are only for cars and dogs and not for people.

 A complaint was lodged against her, for making these statements, by one Sudhir Kumar Ojha claiming that it touched the sentiment of the poor of whole of this country and the statement might have caused riot. She approached the high court seeking quashing of the complaint.

Perusing the complaint, Justice Birendra Kumar observed: “A bare perusal of the complaint petition does not reveal that the statement of the petitioner on the issue above was malignantly or willingly made which was illegal. The same was not intended to give any provocation to any person knowing that the provocation would cause riot.”

The court also observed that complaint petition did not reveal that any imputation prejudicial to the national integrity was there except bald statement of the complainant.

It also said that there is no material disclosing the ingredients of offences for which FIR has been instituted against Farah Khan Ali and that the continuance of the criminal proceeding against the petitioner would amount to an abuse of the process of the court.

Read the Judgment here.