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The Punjab and Haryana High Court has on Wednesday directed the State of Punjab not to take coercive steps against Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon, filmmaker Farah Khan, comedian Bharti Singh and writer Abbas Aziz Dalal.

They had moved a plea, for quashing of an FIR registered at Batala, Punjab against them for allegedly hurting religious sentiments during a web show titled 'Backbenchers' which was released by Flipkart.

The show Backbenchers was a non-scripted comedy-based web quiz show hosted by Bollywood director Farah Khan where Bollywood and Sports celebrities were invited to test their general knowledge through several rounds of written and oral tests.

The alleged incident which led to the filing of instant FIR happened during the show where Raveena Tandon and Bharti Singh were participants. They were asked to spell the word “Hallelujah” and also to disclose its meaning by narrating the same.

While Raveena Tandon spelled it correctly, she did not explain its meaning or narrated anything. Bharti Singh, however, misspelled it and referred it to an identical word in Hindi, to which only the pronunciation resembled.

A total of 13 FIRs have been registered throughout the country wherein it has been alleged that joke of the word “Hallelujah” has played with the religious sentiments of a particular community.

The instant petition to quash the FIR at Batla, Punjab was filed before the Punjab & Haryana High Court through Advocates Abhinav Sood, Gaurav Girish Shukla, Anmol Gupta & Dhruv Chowfla.

When the plea came up for hearing before the bench of Justice Karamjit Singh,  Abhinav Sood, Advocate, argued that none of the ingredients of the alleged offence under Section 295A of Indian Penal Code for hurting the religious sentiments were made out.

He told the court that there was no deliberate and malicious intention by anyone for outraging the religious feelings. Sood argued that the allegations in the FIR are “unjustified, false and incorrect”.

He submitted that Tandon, Farah Khan and Bharti Singh were asked to spell a word and explain its meaning. While Tandon spelled it correctly, Bharti Singh misspelled it and it apparently meant that Singh did not know the word and was referring to another word in Hindi that sounded similar.

It was argued that there was nothing that could lead to the presumption that the act was intended to hurt the religious sentiments of a community. Sood further argued that their actions did not even remotely qualify to constitute an offence under Section 295-A of the Indian Penal Code.

He argued that successive FIRs founded on the same cause of action are not maintainable as held by the Apex Court in the landmark judgments of T.T Antony & Arnab Ranjan Goswami.

Court, while issuing notice of motion for December 5, 2022, directed that no coercive steps shall be taken by the State of Punjab against the celebrities in the Batala FIR.

Case title: Raveena Tandon & Ors Vs State of Punjab