Snehal Upadhyay-
Kerala High Court received a statement filed by the Administration of Lakshadweep opposing filmmaker Aisha Sultana’s plea to rescind the FIR registered in the case of sedition against her.
The statement was filed through the central government’s Counsel S Manu. They have stated that the FIR cannot be quashed without having a proper investigation.
The Administration has alleged that the filmmaker was not cooperating with the police while the investigation was going on. The statement mentions that she had deleted several text messages and chats from her mobile phone and she had refused to make available important documents about the case.
The Administration alleges that the filmmaker had made some seditious remarks from her mobile phone in a controversial debate, before giving such remarks she was reading something on her mobile phone.
Also Read: Kerala High Court grants anticipatory bail to Aisha Sultana in Lakshadweep sedition case
They claimed that this was evident from a closer look at the TV debate that aired following the incident.
The statement also claims that she was regularly in touch with certain people during the whole incident. Furthermore, the Administration stated that the Media One Channel’s management was also not cooperating while the investigation was going on.
The petitioner had submitted that the filmmaker had apologized for her seditious remarks on the media channel and made it clear that no charge would live against her for the reason that her remarks did not spark any violence.
Administration contended that “Although she later made certain clarifications and justifications, this was probably an afterthought to get rid of the penal consequences, and asserted that such actions will not absolve the criminal liability for the offence already committed.”
However, in this case, the Administration through its statement had challenged the quashing of an FIR registered on 9th June 2021 for the offences under Section 124A (Punishment for Sedition) and Section 153B (Imputations, Assertions prejudicial to national integration) of IPC on which the investigation had just started.
