Court directs registration of complaint against Raut, Owaisi

A court here has directed registration of a complaint against Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut and MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi on charges of hurting religious sentiments.

Chief Juducial Magistrate, Lucknow, Sunil Kumar gave the directions on the complaint filed by senior IPS officer Amitabh Thakur under section 200 CrPC (examination of complaint by magistrate) against Raut and Owaisi.

The court asked Thakur to get his statement recorded under section 202 CrPC (in an enquiry the magistrate, if he thinks fit, takes evidence of witness on oath) on April 25.
The complaint said the way Raut pleaded for taking away voting rights of Muslims amounts to offence under sections 153(A) (promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence etc), 295(A) (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief), 298 (uttering words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings of any person), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) besides others sections.
Similarly, the statements attributed to Owaisi in that article also amounts to same offences, the complaint said.

The complaint called the offence "extremely serious" and "sensitive" for which the complainant's counsel Tripuresh Tripathi prayed for summoning the two accused in court.