SC grants anticipatory bail to cartoonist accused over ‘objectionable’ posts on PM, RSS

New Delhi: : The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to cartoonist Hemant Malviya, accused of sharing allegedly objectionable cartoons of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS workers on social media.

A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Anjaria noted that the petitioner has apologised on his Facebook and Instagram accounts. 

Malviya's advocate, Vrinda Grover, informed the court that an apology was given and that the petitioner had not yet been summoned.

Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj, appearing for the Madhya Pradesh government submitted that the summoning will take place only after all the evidence is gathered. 

Upon hearing submissions, the bench gave the police liberty to seek cancellation of his bail in case the cartoonist did not cooperate in the probe.

On July 15, the court had expressed disapproval and dissatisfaction over the cartoonist's conduct. It deprecated the use of offensive language in shows and on social media, while granting protection from coercive action to the cartoonist.

The court on July 14 told the Indore-based cartoonist that his conduct was immature, after which he agreed to delete the Facebook post.

Malviya, who faced an FIR was aggrieved with July 3 order by the high court, which refused to grant him the anticipatory bail. 

The high court had observed that it was a gross misuse of freedom of speech. 

A case was registered against Malviya at the Lasudiya police station of Indore in May on the complaint of local lawyer and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker Vinay Joshi. 

The complaint alleged that Malviya hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus and disturbed communal harmony by uploading objectionable material on social media.

The high court had observed that on the face of it, the conduct of the applicant in depicting the RSS, which is a Hindu organisation, along with the prime minister of this country in the caricature, coupled with his endorsement of a rather demeaning remark, dragging unnecessarily the name of Lord Shiva in the comments tagged to it, is nothing but sheer misuse of freedom of speech and expression as enshrined under Art 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

Malviya's lawyer had argued in the high court that he only posted a cartoon, but he could not be held responsible for the comments posted on it by other Facebook users.