The Karnataka High Court has quashed a second First Information Report registered against senior Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Basanagouda Patil Yatnal concerning public remarks made during a political gathering regarding the Prophet Muhammad. A single-judge bench delivered the ruling after examining criminal petitions challenging the registration of multiple identical complaints across separate police jurisdictions.
The High Court held that lodging multiple criminal cases across different police stations for the identical incident or continuous transaction violates settled constitutional principles against double jeopardy and amounts to an abuse of judicial process. Justice noted that since an initial FIR regarding the contested speech was already under formal police investigation, subsequent complaints concerning identical statements could not be independently maintained. The court emphasized that while law enforcement authorities possess statutory mandates to investigate hate speech allegations, procedural due process dictates that separate penal prosecutions cannot be multiplied for a single unified public discourse.
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Sources:
https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/karnataka-high-court/karnataka-high-court-quashes-second-fir-mla-basanagouda-patil-improper-speech-prophet-556137