A court in Madikeri district of Karnataka has quashed a case of sedition filed against actress Divya Spandana (also known as Ramya), as per a report in News 9.
The actress also tweeted:
JMFC court Madikeri has quashed the sedition case against me.Thank you all for your support.Fight the good fight! https://t.co/P21GZLaIp2
— Divya Spandana/Ramya (@divyaspandana) April 18, 2017
Divya Spandana represented Mandya district as an MP for the Congress party. She was one among a group of young women politicians who travelled to Pakistan for a cultural exchange/study trip. On her return, she had said that, contrary to many proclamations, “Pakistan is not hell, people there are like us.” Many in the BJP believed this was a retort to defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s statement that “Going to Pakistan is like going to hell”.
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Needless to say, Divya Spandana’s statements prompted many to take offence. In particular, lawyer Vittal Gowda of Coorg took umbrage on behalf of all Indians, and claimed that her statements were seditious. He filed a petition in the Junior Magistrate First Class in Madikeri, demanding that Divya be booked under Sections 124 A (Sedition) and 334 (Voluntarily Causing Hurt) of the Indian Penal Code.
Hearing the petition, Judge Shyam Prasad observed that Pakistan was not officially an enemy state, and that praising its citizens does not amount to sedition. The magistrate further observed that the petitioner Vittal Gowda had not provided sufficient evidence to prove sedition on the part of Divya Spandana. The court therefore dismissed the case.