The Karnataka High Court on Friday quashed two First Information Reports (FIRs) registered against former Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Basavaraj Bommai over alleged hate speech delivered at a protest rally in November 2024.
Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar, delivering the judgment, ruled that the comments made by Bommai during the protest did not amount to the offence of promoting enmity between different groups under Section 196(1)(a) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The court noted that the allegations were vague and lacked sufficient legal substance to warrant criminal proceedings.
The FIRs stemmed from a BJP-organised protest rally in Savanur taluk, Haveri district, where Bommai, now the Haveri MP, had accused the Karnataka Waqf Board and the Congress-led state government of encroaching upon farmlands and temple properties. During the rally, Bommai remarked that “if a stone is thrown anywhere in Savanur, it will land on a Waqf property”—a statement that led to the registration of hate speech cases against him.
In his order, Justice Kumar observed:
“If the impugned complaint and FIR is perused keeping in mind the principles elucidated, it is clear that except stating that wherever a stone is thrown, Waqf property is to be found, there are no allegations to attract the offence.”
The judge added that continuing the criminal proceedings based on such “vague, bald, omnibus, laconic allegations” would amount to an abuse of the judicial process.
