The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Indore-based cartoonist, Hemant Malviya, who faced an FIR over an objectionable cartoon on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS, on Monday agreed to delete the Facebook posts, after the Supreme Court slammed him, saying his conduct was inflammatory and immature.
Taking up his plea against rejection of anticipatory bail plea by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, a bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Aravind Kumar expressed disapproval and dissatisfaction over the cartoonist's conduct.
The bench asked his counsel Vrinda Grover if the petitioner was willing to delete his post.
Agreeing to the suggestion, she also sought interim protection in the case, on the ground that the matter was about personal liberty and that the police were knocking at his door.
"I will make a statement that I am not endorsing the objectionable comments," Grover said.
She, however, maintained that his comments might be unplatable or in poor taste but those were not an offence.
She said that the accused is 50 year-old man and should be granted interim relief, to which the bench said, "Still no maturity. We agree that it is inflammatory."
The bench scheduled the matter for consideration on Tuesday.
The petitioner challenged the Madhya Pradesh HC's order of July 3, declining him anticipatory bail.
The petitioner allegedly portrayed PM Modi and RSS caricatures, which the High Court found as “undignified” "deliberate" and "malicious", on his Facebook page.
RSS activist Vinay Joshi filed the complaint in the case.
In its order, the High Court had said the conduct of Malviya in depicting the RSS and the Prime Minister, coupled with his endorsement of a demeaning remark unnecessarily dragging the name of Hindu deity Shiva in the comments tagged to the cartoon, was nothing but the sheer misuse of the freedom of speech and expression, as enshrined under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.