HC grants influencer interim bail in hate speech case
Times of India | 6 June 2025
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday granted interim bail to the fourth-year law student of Symbiosis International University in Pune who was arrested for a video that she had posted online that hurt religious sentiments. The court cautioned her and asked her to be careful while commenting.The HC asked the social media influencer to submit her passport to the Alipore court, help investigations and not to leave the country without the court's permission, even if she needed to go abroad for her education. The student's lawyer told the HC that the girl, who had been in a Kolkata jail since May 30, had her exams starting from June 9.The student was arrested for promoting communal hatred through her comments and an Instagram video, which has now been deleted, after Operation Sindoor. Her interim bail plea was first filed in the HC on June 3, when Justice Partha Saratha Chatterjee asked the state to file the case diary. When the matter came up for hearing before the vacation bench of Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury, the court observed that the arrest warrant against the student, issued on May 22, based on which she was arrested from Gurgaon on May 30, was issued in a "mechanical manner" and contained "many errors".Justice Basu Chowdhury also observed that the arrest warrant did not reveal the grounds of arrest, despite the Supreme Court's order that the reasons for arrest should be known to the accused. The vacation bench allowed the interim bail application by the girl against a personal bond of Rs 10,000. The girl's counsel, D P Singh, pleaded for interim bail. The court also directed police to provide her security following her complaint that she was receiving threats. Justice Basu Chowdhury, while noting that the petitioner was a law student, directed her to cooperate with the investigation.The court held that there was no further reason to keep the accused in judicial custody. Advocate general Kishore Datta opposed the granting of bail, citing that the accused was brought in transit remand and an Alipore court had denied her bail plea, remanding her in judicial custody till June 13. Datta submitted that police had reached out to her house on May 18 to serve a notice to appear at a police station but could not find her there. "She didn't cooperate with the investigation," the AG said, adding the arrest warrant was issued after that.Singh said the petitioner and her father went to their nearby police station on May 15 and May 17 to seek for security following threats. Justice Basu Chowdhury observed cops had the responsibility of filing an FIR on receiving a complaint. "The issue requires further consideration," the court held, referring the case to a regular bench for further hearing.