In a big relief to comedian Bharti Singh of The Kapil Sharma Show, The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the police to not take any coercive measures against her in a case related to hurting religious sentiments. Earlier, the court had issued a similar directive on the plea filed by actress Raveena Tandon and choreographer-director Farah Khan.
While hearing the petition filed by Bharti, Justice Sudip Ahluwalia said that the famous comedian’s plea would come up for further hearing on 25 March along with the petition filed by Raveena and Farah.
Bharti had sought the legal services of the same counsel, who’s representing Farah and Raveena. Lawyer Abhinav Sood, according to news agency PTI, said that the petition was expected to come up for hearing before Justice Sudip Ahluwalia on 27 January.
Bharti, Farah and Raveena were accused of hurting the religious sentiments of the Christian community in a TV show called Backbenchers. Bharti had wrongly spelt Hallelujah.
The first police complaint against the three entertainment celebrities was filed by one Sonu Jafar in Amritsar of Punjab. Two more police cases were registered later in the state’s Ferozpur and Rupnagar districts. Another FIR was filed in Maharashtra’s Beed district. Angry Christians had also staged protests in some places in Punjab and Jammu. Bharti’s lawyer has argued that the FIR against his client was illegal, ex-facie bad in law and needed to be quashed.
Farah, Raveena and Bharti had issued public apologies for hurting the religious sentiments of the community seeking forgiveness.