Nandy's prosecution justified

NEW DELHI: The Gujarat government has justified the criminal prosecution of political analyst Ashis Nandy for writing an article in a national daily allegedly portraying the state in bad light and has pleaded the Delhi High Court not to interfere in the proceeding at this stage.

Filing a response on Nandy's petition seeking quashing of proceeding against him in Ahmedabad, the Narendra Modi government has said that the FIR registered against Nandy cannot be transferred to the national capital and the Delhi High Court should not interfere in the ongoing investigation.

"It is submitted that the FIR in this case prima facie discloses the offence under the Criminal Procedure Code and the court should not interfere and allow the investigation to be completed," the state government said in it's seven-page affidavit filed in the High Court.

"It has been held time and again by courts that the power of quashing criminal proceeding should be exercised sparingly with circumspection and that too in the rarest of rare cases," it said adding that the government had allowed the prosecution of Nandy after perusing the article published in a national daily in December last year.

The government was responding to the notice issued to it by the High Court on June 25 on Nandy's plea. An FIR was filed in Ahmedabad by an NGO, National Council for Civil Liberties, alleging that the article written after the last assembly elections projected the state in bad light and promoted communal disharmony between Hindus and Muslims.