Final Thursday, the Karnataka Excessive Courtroom stayed the Congress authorities’s Might 27 order quashing 52 prison circumstances, which got here days after the then Siddaramaiah cupboard determined to remain the prosecution of those circumstances.
The Siddaramaiah authorities’s choice is the newest in a sequence of strikes by successive governments led by each the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Get together to drop prison circumstances towards people and teams believed to be from their respective assist bases.
Regardless of elevated judicial scrutiny of those choices lately, these circumstances, primarily involving rioting, illegal meeting, and violation of injunctions, have been dismissed by government order.
Through the earlier time period between 2013 and 2018, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress authorities dropped a complete of 176 circumstances, largely these involving activists of the now-outlawed Islamic group In style Entrance of India (PFI), farmers, Dalits and pro-Kannada teams.
Throughout its 2019-2023 regime, the Bharatiya Janata Get together authorities dropped 385 circumstances, lots of which concerned celebration activists allied with right-wing Hindutva organizations just like the Hindu Jagarana Vedike, celebration MPs, farmers’ teams and different activists.
Because the Congress returned to energy in Might 2023, the Siddaramaiah authorities, in two separate orders issued on October 15, 2024 and Might 27, 2026, ordered withdrawal of a complete of 95 circumstances registered towards activists of Muslim, pro-Kannada, farmers and Dalit organizations, largely accused in communal circumstances.
Nevertheless, such “politically motivated” strikes face rising restraint by the judiciary.
The excessive court docket’s judgment, whereas echoing the federal government’s Might 27 order and citing its personal Might 29, 2025 order, stated states can’t keep away from selective prosecution of circumstances as particular person state prosecutors have the ability to determine on prosecution of circumstances underneath Part 321 of the Code of Prison Process (CrPC).
“In view of the order dated Might 29, 2025, the impugned order is stayed until the subsequent date of listening to,” Excessive Courtroom Chief Justice Vibhu Bakr and Justice KS Hemalekkha stated on July 2 on a petition by right-wing activist Girish Bharadwaj opposing the federal government’s transfer.
Siddaramaiah’s final act
In one in every of its final conferences, on Might 21, Siddaramaiah’s cupboard authorised a proposal to “take permission of the Excessive Courtroom to withdraw a complete of 42 circumstances listed in Schedule 1 registered with numerous police stations of the state and pending trial in numerous courts and 10 circumstances listed in Schedule 2”.
An evaluation of 52 circumstances by The Indian Specific revealed that these embrace eight circumstances associated to communal incidents that came about throughout February-March 2022 in Orlando, Kalburgi, through the Bharatiya Janata Get together authorities. Within the incident, many Muslims have been arrested after communal tensions escalated after right-wing teams just like the Shri Rama Sena insisted on performing rituals at a Hindu temple within the Leh Dul Masyak Dargah complicated. Within the Orlando incident, a request was made by the Orlando Dargah Administration Committee to the federal government to withdraw eight circumstances registered towards over 300 Muslims, together with many minors.
The 52 circumstances additionally included 10 associated to the Bengaluru violence in 2016 involving pro-Kannada teams following the Supreme Courtroom’s orders concerning the Cauvery water dispute and protests towards non-Kannada banners. 5 circumstances filed towards Dalit organizations for protesting towards alleged insults towards BR Ambedkar. 12 circumstances are associated to farmers’ protests. And a few circumstances are associated to Covid protocol violations in 2020-2021.
The federal government has additionally determined to maneuver the Excessive Courtroom to quash 10 circumstances slapped towards Kannada rights activist Vattal Nagaraj in Bengaluru since 2006.
To date, the court docket has allowed closure of just one case out of 52, which associated to a case filed towards Kannada activists from the Kannada Rakshana Vedike for tearing down English banners in central Bengaluru in 2023.
State Dwelling Minister Priyank Kharge stated the federal government would take into account the Excessive Courtroom’s order looking for authorized motion on the difficulty.
judicial restraint
On Might 29, 2025, the Excessive Courtroom heard a PIL filed by Girish Bharadwaj and stayed the Congress authorities’s October 2024 order to withdraw 43 circumstances. A few of them have been associated to the 2022 Hubballi violence. A derogatory social media submit towards Islam infected communal passions and led to a mob throwing stones at a neighborhood police station, which was later taken down by the police. I made reservations for a couple of individuals. Anjuman-e-Islam, a Hubbari-based Islamic group, demanded that the case towards the defendants be dropped, which the federal government accepted.
Different circumstances withdrawn underneath the federal government’s October 2024 order included these towards farmer organizations, Dalit and Kannada activists.
Whatever the authorities’s order, the excessive court docket dominated that the ability to drop circumstances is vested in prosecutors and can’t be exercised by the state.
The Division Bench of the Excessive Courtroom dominated that, “By its very nature, the ordinance infringes on the discretion that prosecutors ought to train in withdrawing circumstances underneath Article 321 of the Structure.This deprives prosecutors of the liberty to train discretion.”
“The federal government order and the choice mirrored therein are political in nature, an train of energy. The defendants themselves declare that ministers and officers have been current within the assembly that resulted within the passing of the censure order handed by the federal government. Subsequently, it might be argued that it was a politically taken choice,” the excessive court docket stated.
The federal government argued that the order to withdraw the case was a “coverage choice” of the federal government and didn’t violate Part 321 of the CrPC. “The ability to withdraw prison circumstances on broad grounds of public coverage, upkeep of legislation and order, public peace and concord, and ‘social and political concerns’ is reserved to the chief authorities,” it argued.
Bharatiya Janata Get together authorities goals to drop the lawsuit
On August 31, 2020, the then Bharatiya Janata Get together authorities determined to withdraw 62 circumstances. The Excessive Courtroom stayed the order on December 21, 2020, after listening to a PIL filed by Individuals’s Alliance for Freedom. Citing the SC judgment in Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay vs. Union of India case, the court docket had on August 11, 2021 ordered that states can’t withdraw circumstances towards present and former MLAs/MPs with out the permission of the HC.
Among the many beneficiaries of the BJP authorities’s transfer have been two celebration MPs, then Mysuru MP Pratap Sinha and Honali MLA Renukacharya, with a complete of 4 circumstances towards them being withdrawn.
Throughout its time period from July 2019 to April 2023, the Bharatiya Janata Get together authorities had issued seven separate orders withdrawing 385 expenses, together with 182 gang circumstances associated to hate speech, cow vigilantism and gang violence, the federal government’s RTI response to a question from The Indian Specific revealed in 2023. In accordance with the main points, in many of the group circumstances involving the Bharatiya Janata Get together authorities, it selected to drop expenses towards right-wing activists on the advice of the Dwelling Minister, permission of a cupboard sub-committee and approval of the state cupboard.
As many as 45 of those circumstances have been associated to gang violence allegedly carried out by right-wing activists over the demise of Hindu youth Paresh Mesta in December 2017 in Uttara Kannada district, which was later discovered to be an “unintentional demise” by the CBI.
The incidents included 4 incidents of cow vigilantism in Chikkamagalur, a number of incidents of violence in Kodagu and Mysuru over Tipu Jayanti celebrations, incidents round festivals similar to Rama Navami, Hanuman Jayanti and Ganesh competition, and protests over interfaith marriages and non secular conversions.
Amongst those that benefited from the withdrawal of circumstances by the BJP authorities was Hindu Jagalan Vedike chief Jagadish Karanth, who was accused in 4 circumstances of hate speech in Dakshina Kannada, Bagalkot, Bengaluru rural and Tumkur.
The Bharatiya Janata Get together, the primary opposition celebration from 2013 to 2018, had accused the ruling Congress of dropping quite a lot of circumstances towards 1,600 activists from the PFI and SDPI teams over unlawful gatherings and protests within the state.
