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Justice Kaushik Chanda of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday quashed a first information report (FIR) filed against veteran actor and BJP leader Mithun Chakraborty over an alleged controversial speech he made during the West Bengal elections earlier this year.

The F.I.R. was lodged by a member of the ruling Trinamool Congress party. It had alleged that a large number of full-time workers of the said party, all over West Bengal, have been subjected to physical torture, and immense violence by the party workers of the rival political party in the State. It has been alleged that such violence and harm were done due to the instigation of the Mithun Chakraborty, who in various public meetings, appearances and speeches during his election campaign delivered two dialogues namely, “marbo ekhane, laash pore shoshane”  (will hit you here and your body will fall in the crematorium) and”ek chhobol ei choobi” (one snake bite will turn you into a photograph). The F.I.R. suggests that Chakraborty  being a public figure and icon of Bengal, his statement and in the manner in which such statement was made instigated and provoked the opposition party workers.

Mr. Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for Chakraborty submitted  that words are only dialogues of two films namely, “Abhimanyu” and “M.L.A. Fatakeshto”. Those two dialogues were very popular amongst the people of Bengal, and Chakraborty said those dialogues on many occasions only to entertain the audience.

Per contra, Mr. Saswata Gopal Mukherjee, appearing on behalf of the State submitted that Chakraborty, in a calculating manner has chosen the word which in one way can be termed as the dialogue of a film and in the other way it would spread hatred against a targeted group, thus delivering a hate speech. Mukherjee also stressed on the need to examine context, harm and impact of the words and that can be done only by way of a police investigation. He also highlighted that the petitioner had offered an apology indicating his implied acceptance of committing the offence.

The Court referred to Amish Devgan v. Union of India, wherein the Supreme Court had observed that a deliberate and malicious intent is necessary. Such intent can be gathered from the words itself— satisfying the test of top of Clapham omnibus, “the who factor—person making the comment, the targeted and non-targeted group, the context and occasion factor—the time and circumstances in which the words or speech was made, the state of feeling between the two communities, etc. and the proximate nexus with the protected harm, to cumulatively satiate the test of hate-speech.”

The Court observed that the two dialogues in question are fundamentally funny, hilarious, and entertaining; it is futile to try to find the elements of hate speech in them. A reasonable man in the context or circumstances in which the said two dialogues were uttered cannot view them as an expression of hatred.

“There is, perhaps, no need to take resort to any complex theories to appreciate whether the utterance of these two dialogues would amount to hate speech. The petitioner is a popular matinee idol. The involvement of film stars in politics in the country is nothing new. It is also well known that film stars try to entertain and attract voters by saying cinematic dialogues in political rallies,” the Court opined.

The Court further observed that since there was no publication of words or representations, Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 cannot be attracted. 28. The petitioner did not utter those dialogues to promote the feeling of enmity, hatred, or ill-will between different religious, racial, linguistic or regional groups or castes or communities, and, therefore, the ingredients of offences under Sections 153A, 504, and 505 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 are absent in this case.

The Court concluded that since Chakraborty does not deny the fact that he uttered the said dialogues and the context in which the said dialogues were delivered is also not denied, any “further police investigation of the present case will be an unnecessary and vexatious exercise.” Hence, the case against Chakraborty was quashed.

Mithun Chakraborty v. State of West Bengal