NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday reminded Congress party leader Pawan Khera to maintain "some level in public discourse" while granting him interim bail in a case related to his alleged derogatory statement against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's father.
"We have protected you. But there has to be some level of discourse," a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices M R Shah and P S Narasimha said.
The bench granted Khera relief till Tuesday in the FIR lodged by the Assam Police.
The court also saw the video clip of the statement during the arguments of the matter.
Appearing for Kheral, senior advocate A M Singhvi said, "I don't support this (remark), but it can't be invoked under Section 153 A and 295 A of the IPC. I am accepting it is mistake."
Khera was deboarded from a flight to Raipur here and arrested by the police. He was on way to Raipur to attend plenary session of the Party on Friday.
The counsel said he had already apologised for his statement and there was no basis for lodging of FIR.
He said as many as three FIRs one each in Lucknow and Varanasi and another in Assam had been lodged against him.
The counsel who mentioned the matter to seek urgent hearing also said the police had failed to give advance notice under Section 41 A of the Criminal Procedure Code as mandated by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar judgement before arrest in a case for offences not carrying maximum punishment upto seven years jail term.
The court issued notice to the Assam and Uttar Pradesh police on his plea for clubbing of the FIRs and put the matter for hearing on Monday.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for Assam police strongly opposed the plea, contending the petitioner purposefully made the statement against the duly elected Prime Minister of the largest democracy the world.
"The statement was derogatory and made to incide disaffection against the Prime Minister," she said.
