POLICE AUTHORITIES ARE RESPONSIBLE TO REGISTER FIR WITHIN 15 DAYS TO 90 DAYS OF THE COMPLAINT AND THEN AFTER REASON FOR DELAY MUST BE REPORTED TO HOD

Secularism has been declared part of the Constitution's unamendable, basic structure, precisely so that state could neither favour a religion nor punish disrespect towards one , and the Article 25 guarantees not just the right to practice religion but, implicitly, the space for social reformers, sceptics and atheists to challenge religious practice, since the same Article subjects the right to religious freedom to public order, morality and health and permits the state to legislate for social welfare and reforms, even where this cuts against religious custom. Article 19(1) (a) guarantees for the free speech in the same breath that the Article 19(2) too permits the reasonable restrictions in the interests of public order decency or morality. Speech in violation of Article 19(1) (a) , Section 295 A and its BNS successor rest on terms no more precise, outrage, insult, religious feelings, policed after the fact by which ever officer happens to receive the complaint , yet the court has never brought the reasoning to bear on the provision, whose own constitutionality it settled, without revisiting it . A cartoon, a novel, a documentary, a stray remark on social media, all can be made to fit the language of insult, without any accompanying threat of actual disorder, and the Indian criminal procedure allows a First Information Report to be lodged and an accused to be arrested, well before any court examines, whether the constitutionality required deliberate and malicious intent was in fact present. The chilling effect happens at the point of complaint, not at the point of conviction and the Supreme has, in a neighbouring context already endorsed exactly this objection and it struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act in its entirely, holding that criminalising online messages using undefined terms such as offensive and menacing:-- Er Fateh chand Guleria, Director RTI welfare Association registered number HPCD, 3552 , Bilaspur Himachal pradesh phone number, 9459334377