The Gujarat High Court has dismissed a criminal case registered against a Surat textile merchant for selling sarees featuring images of Gautam Buddha along their lower borders, ruling that the commercial sale of garments bearing revered religious figures does not amount to a criminal offence without demonstrable malicious intent.
Justice P M Raval, while hearing a quashing petition filed by businessman Bharatbhai Hirjibhai Shankar on October 7, held that the statutory threshold under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code requires an aggravated and deliberate intention to outrage religious beliefs. The bench noted that commercial transactions involving religious motifs, conducted without inflammatory rhetoric or overt derogatory conduct, cannot be treated as a punishable insult to faith. The court cautioned that penalising ordinary trade practices lacking criminal design would improperly expand criminal law beyond constitutional limits.
Statutory Bar And Legal Threshold
Examining the scope of Section 295A, the high court emphasised the established legal standard that criminal liability attaches only to intentional and malicious acts aimed at wounding the religious feelings of a community. Careless depictions or commercial use absent an intent to outrage do not fulfill the requirements of the penal provision.
After reviewing the record, Justice Raval concluded that even if the allegations in the initial complaint were accepted at face value, they failed to disclose a preliminary case of aggravated religious insult against the trader. The court held that permitting the criminal prosecution to proceed would constitute an abuse of judicial process.
Origins Of The December 2017 Complaint
The legal proceedings stemmed from an First Information Report registered on December 21, 2017. The action was initiated after members of the Samast Yuva Ambedkar Samaj alerted their organisation’s president that sarees and dress materials featuring printed depictions of Gautam Buddha were being sold at various retail outlets in Surat’s textile market.
Representatives of the community carried out inspections of the shops and subsequently approached law enforcement. The complaint alleged that placing Buddha’s image across the lower regions of the attire, including the border, pallu, and foot areas, was a calculated attempt to degrade the revered figure and wound the community’s religious sentiments.
Defence Cites Routine Commerce And Business Rivalry
Shankar approached the high court seeking the cancellation of the FIR, denying any intention to demean any faith. His counsel submitted that he was engaged in the ordinary retail of sarees and dress materials, acquiring stock from manufacturers purely in response to prevailing market patterns and customer demand.
The petitioner also contended that the complaint was motivated by commercial competition, asserting that the complainant operated within the same commercial sector. Shankar further drew attention to procedural delays, noting that while the alleged inspection took place on December 19, 2017, the formal police complaint was filed two days later on December 21.
Opposition And Police Inquiries
The complainant and the state government opposed the plea to dismiss the case. They submitted that photographic evidence placed before the bench demonstrated a prima facie offence and argued that the high court should avoid conducting a mini-trial at this stage, urging instead that the matter proceed through standard criminal procedures.
The court examined the submitted photographs alongside an investigation report filed by the Salabatpura police in August 2024. Although the police inquiry confirmed that Shankar had sourced garments carrying images of deities and Gautam Buddha along the lower sections, the report revealed that identical merchandise was widely sold by other traders across Surat.
Finding no evidence to indicate an intentional or malicious effort to disparage religion, the high court formally quashed the criminal case.
