JUDGMENT :

(Prayer: Criminal Original Petition filed under Section 482 of Cr.Pc, to call for the entire records of the FIR in Crime No.415 of 2021 on the file of the first respondent police station and quash the same as illegal insofar as the petitioner herein is concerned.)

Jug Suraiya, Bachi Karkaria, E.P.Unny and G.Sampath ... if any one of them, or for that matter any satirist or cartoonist had authored this judgement, they would have proposed a momentous amendment to the Constitution of India to incorporate sub-clause (l) in Article 51-A. Article 51-A states that it shall be the duty of every citizen of India-

“(a) to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem;

(b) to cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom;

(c) to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;

(d) to defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so;

(e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;

(f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;

(g) to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures;

(h) to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;

(i) to safeguard public property and to abjure violence;

(j) to strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement;

(k) who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen years.”

To this, the hypothetical author would have added one more fundamental duty - duty to laugh. The correlative right to be funny can be mined in Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution of India (the use of crypto vocabulary to be forgiven). Being funny is one thing and poking fun at another is different altogether.

2. “Laugh at what?” is a serious question. This is because we have holy cows grazing all over from Varanasi to Vadipatty. One dare not poke fun at them. There is however no single catalogue of holy cows. It varies from person to person and from region to region. A real cow, even if terribly underfed and emaciated, shall be holy in Yogi's terrain. In West Bengal, Tagore is such an iconic figure that Khushwant Singh learnt the lesson at some cost. Coming to my own Tamil Desh, the all-time iconoclast “Periyar” Shri.E.V.Ramasamy is a super-holy cow. In today's Kerala, Marx and Lenin are beyond the bounds of criticism or satire. Chhatrapati Shivaji and Veer Savarkar enjoy a similar immunity in Maharashtra. But all over India, there is one ultimate holy cow and that is “national security”.

3. The petitioner herein is an important office-bearer of a not-so-important political party. CPI (ML) is now an over-ground organization which contests elections also. Paper warriors are also entitled to fantasise that they are swadeshi Che Guevaras.

4. On 16.09.2021, the petitioner herein went on a sightseeing pleasure trip with his daughter and son-in-law to Sirumalai hills. He put out the photographs taken on the occasion in his Facebook page. He gave the caption “TAMIL” (Trip to Sirumalai for shooting practice). Revolutionaries, whether real or phoney, are not usually credited with any sense of humour (or at least this is the stereotype). For a change, the petitioner tried to be funny. Perhaps it was his maiden attempt at humour.

5. Vadipatty Police did not find it to be a joke. They thought the petitioner was making preparations to wage war against the State. They registered a case in Crime No.415 of 2021 against the petitioner for the offences under Sections 120B, 122, 505(1)(b) and 507 of IP