SC grants interim protection to lawyer Prashant Bhushan

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim protection from arrest to activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan over a tweet in which he said ministers were “feeding the opium of Ramayana & Mahabharata to the people” to divert their attention from the plight of the poor during the lockdown."

Bhushan approached the court after an FIR filed in Gujarat accused him of hurting religious sentiments. He sought protection from arrest and quashing of the FIR that also said his statement could cause fear or alarm among the public.

A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and Sanjiv Khanna issued notices on his plea and granted him protection for two weeks. The bench will hear the case after getting formal replies from the complainant and the state government.


“Notice. No coercive action,” the bench said. But before that the bench wondered how Bhushan could object to people watching anything on TV. “How can you object to what people are watching on TV,” Justice Bhushan asked.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who represented Bhushan in the court, refused to be drawn into that debate. “We are only talking about the FIR here,” he contended.

Bhushan had tweeted in response to a photograph of Union information minister Prakash Javadekar watching Ramayana. “As crores starve & walk hundreds of miles home due to forced lockdown, our heartless ministers celebrate consuming & feeding the opium of Ramayana & Mahabharata to the people,” he tweeted.