The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has refused to grant relief to the person accused of burning copies of Ramcharitmanas.
The Court while dealing with the petition of a man accused of burning copies of Ramcharitmanas has directed the police authorities to follow the mandate of Section 41A CrPC and also the directions issued by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar v State of Bihar.
The Division Bench of Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Narendra Kumar Johari passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Mahendra Pratap Singh.
Under challenge in the petition is the First Information Report, lodged on 29.01.2023, under Sections 120-B, 142, 143, 153-A, 295, 295-A, 298, 504, 505(2), 506 IPC, Police Station PGI, District Lucknow.
Counsel for the petitioner confines his prayer for issuing direction to the police authorities to follow the mandate of Section 41A, CrPC for the reason that the offences mentioned in the impugned First Information Report carry the sentence upto 7 years of imprisonment, the Court noted.
Accordingly, the Court disposed of the petition with the direction to the police authorities concerned to follow the mandate of Section 41A, CrPC and also the directions issued by the Supreme Court in the case of Arnesh Kumar Vs State of Bihar, reported in (2014) 8 SCC 273.
In the matter, as per the FIR registered against 10 persons and other unknown people, the allegations against the accused are that he, along with other persons, tore the copies of Ramcharitmanas and burnt them in a public place by trampling the same under their feet and shouted slogans in support of former minister Swami Prasad Maurya and made lewd comments against those who believe in Ramcharitmanas.