UK-based musician, Taran Kaur Dhillon (popularly known as Hard Kaur), has been booked under the sedition law for her ‘unsavoury remarks’ against UP CM Yogi Adityanath and RSS Chief, Mohan Bhagwat.
WHAT?
According to a report appeared in Times Of India, a Varanasi-based lawyer by the name of Shashank Shekhar has filed a police complaint against Hard Kaur under IPC Sections 124A (sedition), 153 (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion), 500 (defamation) and 505 (intent to incite), and Section 66 of the IT Act.
WHY?
Kaur had shared her remarks on the UP CM and the RSS Chief by labelling them ‘Rape-man’ and a ‘racist murderer’ respectively. In two separate Facebook posts accompanied by the two individuals’ pictures, Kaur criticised the two men and held them responsible for the many terror attacks taking place in the country.
HOW DOES IT MATTER TO US?
The complaint against Kaur comes only a few days after the Supreme Court upheld the right to freedom of expression on social media in the case of journalist Prashant Kanojia. He was picked picked up from his Delhi residence by UP cops.
The Delhi-based journalist had posted some critical remarks around UP CM Yogi Adityanath, and he was arrested and thrown in a jail in Lucknow for five days, before being released.
The sedition law and the cases around ‘defamation’ have, time and again, been under the scanner for their controversial nature. In Kanojia’s case, the Editors’ Guild had called it “an effort to intimidate the Press” and said the defamation law was being misused.
