R-Day ad row: investigation ordered against department

MANGALURU: The VIII Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACCM), Bengaluru city has ordered for registering of FIR and criminal investigation to be conducted against the Secretary of Information and Broadcasting and Director General of DAVP, by the RT Nagar Police Station, Bengaluru.
The ACCM also directed the police to file the Final Report by August 1. This pertains to removal of the words 'Secularism' and 'Socialism' from the Preamble of the Constitution of India in the official advertisement of DAVP, on Republic Day.''Since it was not only a brazen attack on the esteem and integrity of the Constitution of India but also a clear violation of the criminal law provision of Section 2 of the Prevention of Insult to National Honour Act, 1971,'' say AAP Karnataka Convenor Siddharth Sharma from RT Nagar, Bengaluru, who filed the plea.
In his plea, Sharma stated the newspaper advertisement was in gross contempt of the Constitution inasmuch as it depicts the Preamble of the Constitution as stating that India is only a, ‘Soveriegn Democratic Republic’, even though the Preamble unequivocally and explicitly states in bold that India is a 'sovereign socialist democratic republic'. The Preamble is not only applicable and binding on the ordinary citizens of India but also upon the Functionaries/Public Servants working within the government system.
He further said in his plea before ACCM that the offence committed hereinabove is grave in nature apart from being offensive to the sensibilities of the concerned citizens of this country such as the complainant who hold the Constitution of India in high esteem and who are fearful of the country turning into a theocratic state.
Furthermore, Sharma said that some of the Cabinet Ministers and the Minister of I&B have allegedly justified the exclusion of the words, going by the reports in sections of the media. ''Hence, it requires to be investigated by the jurisdictional Police whether the advertisement was brought out on the formal directions of the political executive, in which case such persons shall also be equally culpable,'' he added in his plea.