HC suspends sentence of Delhi MLA Naresh Yadav in sacrilege case

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday suspended sentence of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Delhi’s Mehrauli Naresh Yadav in the 2016 desecration case.

A Malerkotla court had awarded a two-year sentence to Yadav on November 29. The court of additional district and sessions judge Parminder Singh Grewal had passed conviction order on Friday (November 28) convicting him under Sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

While posting the matter for further hearing on December 18, the high court bench of justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu also sought record of the trial court as well as the district and sessions court.

“In view of the above, prima facie, the approach of learned appellate court (additional district and sessions court) seems to be not only unusual, rather untenable in law,” the bench of justice Sindhu observed while suspending the sentence and after taking note of Yadav’s argument that both prosecution as well as complainant had requested for withdrawal of the appeal against acquittal. But the court in question proceeded with the case despite that and passed the conviction order. The high court has now ordered that he be released on bail.

On June 24, 2016, torn pages of the Quran were found scattered on a road in Malerkotla. This led to violence and the burning of vehicles by an angry mob. Four persons, including the AAP MLA, were arrested in the case. The desecration took place months ahead of the February 2017 assembly polls in Punjab. Allegations were that Yadav was an abettor and a co-conspirator with the other accused. In his confessional statement before the court, another accused, Vijay, had said that Yadav suggested that if religious disturbance was created in Malerkotla, it could be politically beneficial to them. Vijay suggested if torn pages of Quran were scattered in Malerkotla, it would flare up religious feelings and they (Naresh Yadav and his party) can involve the BJP government in all these cases.

The trial court on March 16, 2021, had acquitted two accused, Yadav and Nand Kishore, but had convicted the remaining accused Vijay Kumar and Gaurav Kumar. Against this order, the state as well as the complainant, Mohd Ashraf, had filed an appeal before the additional district and sessions judge, who has delivered the conviction judgment now.

As per the appeal, last month itself, both prosecution and complainant had moved applications seeking withdrawal of the appeal. But the court in question did not pass any order on their applications and proceeded with the case and passed the conviction order.