Bombay HC relief for shoemaker who ‘hurt’ religious belief

The Bombay high court has stayed a criminal proceeding against a shoe manufacturer who was arrested by the Naupada police of Thane city for hurting the religious sentiments of a community.

The court has admitted the petition and kept the final hearing on November 30.

A division bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice R.D. Dhanuka was hearing a writ petition filed by Dejul Shah, a shoe manufacturer in Thane.

According to the petition, in 2014, a person named Ibrahim Sheikh had registered an FIR with the Naupada police station alleging that Shah printed deliberately the alphabet ‘m’ in a manner resembling the word ‘Allah’ in Urdu language.

The police summoned him immediately and started investigating the matter. After a few days, Shah was given bail by the local court. After that, the police neither investigated the matter nor filed a chargesheet in the local court. Therefore, Shah had decided to approach the high court requesting quashing of the FIR.

Shah’s lawyer Ashok Pande arguing in the court said, “Shah is a small-time business man who makes shoe and sandals locally. He orders sole for his products from a Delhi-based manufacturer named A to Z footwear. He has no idea about how the printed M looks like Allah in Urdu. The sole manufacturer in Delhi belonged to the Muslim community and was also not aware of this. The police arrested the sole manufacturer but had let him off.”

Mr Pande also brought to the notice of the court that earlier, another bench of the high court had directed the assistant commissioner of police to investigate the matter when it came to know the police had not taken the opinion of an Urdu-language expert.

After hearing the arguments, the court observed that prima facie it did not look like a deliberate act and therefore, the court directed the police not to carry out any further investigation and coercive action against the petitioner till the matter was pending in the court.