Supreme Court grants interim bail to comedian Munawar Faruqui

The Supreme Court today granted ad-interim bail to comedian Munawar Faruqui in a case registered against him by the Madhya Pradesh police, Bar and Bench reported.

The report said: "A bench of Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman and BR Gavai also stayed the production warrant of Uttar Pradesh Police against Faruqui in a separate case. The court issued notice to the Madhya Pradesh government while observing that the law laid down by the Supreme Court in its 2014 judgment in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar was not followed and procedure under Section 41 of Code of Criminal Procedure was not complied with."

Faruqui was arrested on January 1 and jailed on allegations of "insulting Hindu gods and goddesses", based on a complaint by the son of a BJP MLA.

Despite there being no evidence that Faruqui made any of these jokes during his performance, he was denied bail until today. While denying him bail on January 28, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had said that with respect to the "material seized and the statements of the witnesses and that the investigation is in progress, no case is made out for grant of bail".