New Delhi:
Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy was today granted anticipatory bail by the Delhi High Court in a case of spreading enmity by writing an inflammatory article in a Mumbai newspaper last year. Granting him bail till January 30, the High Court directed Mr Swamy not to recirculate the article anywhere till the issue was resolved.
The High Court also issued a notice to the Delhi Police asking for its reply to Mr Swamy's allegation that the case was lodged to harass and intimidate him since he was exposing the government's corruption in the 2G case.
A First Information Report (FIR) was registered by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police in October, three months after the publication of the controversial article which was considered offensive to Muslims. He was charged under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for spreading enmity between communities after a complaint by a member of the National Minorities Commission.
Mr Swamy now plans to move the court for quashing of the FIR and sue Home Minister P Chidambaram as well as the Delhi Police.
The High Court Judge hearing Mr Swamy's plea observed, "We should be proud of our system...we are a secular country, so we should respect the system...we have diversity".
The article had also landed Mr Swamy in trouble with the Harvard University, which decided in December to remove the courses which he teaches every summer. At a meeting of the university's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, members voted to remove two economics courses - 'Quantitative Methods in Economics and Business' and 'Economic Development in India and East Asia' - that he teaches.
This followed a furious debate on the article, with several faculty members and student groups describing it as distressful and one which spread hatred. Mr Swamy, who received his PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1965 and has served as an assistant and associate professor there, had described the move as a "dangerous precedent".
The High Court also issued a notice to the Delhi Police asking for its reply to Mr Swamy's allegation that the case was lodged to harass and intimidate him since he was exposing the government's corruption in the 2G case.
A First Information Report (FIR) was registered by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police in October, three months after the publication of the controversial article which was considered offensive to Muslims. He was charged under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for spreading enmity between communities after a complaint by a member of the National Minorities Commission.
Mr Swamy now plans to move the court for quashing of the FIR and sue Home Minister P Chidambaram as well as the Delhi Police.
The High Court Judge hearing Mr Swamy's plea observed, "We should be proud of our system...we are a secular country, so we should respect the system...we have diversity".
The article had also landed Mr Swamy in trouble with the Harvard University, which decided in December to remove the courses which he teaches every summer. At a meeting of the university's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, members voted to remove two economics courses - 'Quantitative Methods in Economics and Business' and 'Economic Development in India and East Asia' - that he teaches.
This followed a furious debate on the article, with several faculty members and student groups describing it as distressful and one which spread hatred. Mr Swamy, who received his PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1965 and has served as an assistant and associate professor there, had described the move as a "dangerous precedent".
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