A petition has been moved in the Supreme Court against actor Kangana Ranaut’s outbursts against the Sikh community over protests against the now-repealed three farm laws. The petitioner, Advocate Sardar Charanjeet Singh Chanderpal, sought directives to all social media companies to curtail or censor or delete Ranaut’s statements made against Sikhs given the vast number of Sikhs in the farm laws protest.
The petition under Article 32 of the Constitution sought directions to the Centre and states to transfer all FIRs on the actor’s derogatory statements against Sikhs to one police station i.e. Khar Police Station and to take appropriate preventive measures under Section 149 to 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 read with Information Technology Act. The Mumbai Police had recently registered an FIR against the actor for her remarks demeaning Sikhs.
The controversy erupted when Ranaut posted a statement on Instagram where she likened the farmers to separatist Khalistani terrorists and reminded Sikhs of Indira Gandhi, whom the actor said had crushed them under her shoe despite paying for it with her own life. Ranaut had hailed Indira Gandhi for not letting secessionist elements divide and break up India.
Chanderpal said in his petition that lakhs of Sikhs, in India and abroad, have been tremendously hurt and affected by the words of Kangana Ranaut, which have been shown on Instagram.
Chanderpal said Kangana made these utterances on a public platform of like Instagram. This post infers Sikh farmers as Khalistani terrorists and revives fears and painful memories of pogroms against the Sikhs in 1984.
The petitioner has urged the Home Ministry along with the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom regulatory authority of India along with the respective police of different states may be directed to take preventive action on social media against Kangana Rangaut that none of her post on social media should be allowed without amendment, deletion, modification or censoring in-order to maintain law and order in the Country. Also that the chargesheet be filed within in a period of 6 months and the Trial Court may complete the trial expeditiously within a period of 2 years.
Chanderpal said that these kind of statements, develop a sense of racial discrimination, hate based on different faiths and could lead to a lot of heated arguments on social media and have to potency of even riots, provocation and have all ingredients of the offences that these statements commit, having effect on the daily like of the petitioner/ his thinking/ his faith/ his confidence in the system and such things just cannot be ignored, as they affect all Sikhs in India as well representing Indians abroad and the penal and corrective remedies in this petition must be put forth.
Few of the various grounds taken in the present petition are:
The farmers issue represented by a good number of Sikh Farmers, the North-west Province of India has been termed as “Khalistani Arm Twisting Tactic” by Kangana Ranaut. By this it is inferred that the Sikhs in the farmers protest are Khalistani.
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Kangana Ranaut has also publicly claimed that, the Sikhs yet get scared of Indira Gandhi. This again is a statement which was not required and is against the Sikhs faith as Sikhs are not supposed to fear anybody except the almighty. Fear and respect have to distinguish.
The petitioner submitted that with the three farms now being repealed by the Centre, there was absolutely no necessity or need or even the slightest room for making such outrageous, provocative and irresponsible statements on social media by Kangana Ranaut.
The petitioner is a practising advocate and practices in the Supreme Court and follows the Sikh faith. He was born in a Nanak Panthi (sahajdaari Sikh) Hindu family following a mixed faith of Sikhism and Hinduism (since generations) until September 20, 1998, when the petitioner officially embraced Sikhism and was baptized as Khalsa (for purely spiritual reasons) and thereafter, again has done Amrit Paan on October 3, 2021 to rectify some spiritual mistakes, and follows the 5 core practices of Sikhism more rigorously for the last two years.