In Brief
A television journalist was prosecuted in seven FIRs across multiple states for uttering the words "terrorist Chishti," "robber Chishti" about the revered Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti during a debate on a religious conversion law. The petitioner claimed the remarks were inadvertent and apologized. The Supreme Court declined to quash the FIRs, holding that factual disputes regarding intent, context, and harm must be determined through investigation and trial, not at the FIR stage. However, the Court transferred all subsequent FIRs to the first jurisdiction to prevent abuse of process, and granted interim protection from arrest during investigation pending full trial examination of whether the speech meets the threshold for criminalization under hate speech provisions.
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