Mumbai: Being a bright student is not ground enough to quash criminal proceedings, the Bombay High Court has held. On Friday, the Court turned down a plea to quash an FIR against a 19-year-old engineering student from Pune who allegedly reposted an objectionable social media post on Operation Sindoor.
The FIR was registered against her on May 9 at the Kondhwa Police Station after the girl, a fourth-semester engineering student at Sinhagad Academy of Engineering, shared a post on Instagram. The post was allegedly against Operation Sindoor. She deleted the post within two hours and tendered an apology later, claiming she had no intention of creating a law-and-order situation.
Her counsel told the court that she was apologetic, had removed the post, and had passed her recent exams with flying colours.
The bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam A Ankhad, however, observed: “This is a very serious thing… If at all you are a child studying, this can only be considered for bail… but we cannot quash it…”
“Being a bright child cannot be a ground to quash the FIR,” the Bench added.
When her lawyer argued that there was no mens rea (criminal intent) on the part of his client, the court responded, “mens rea is irrelevant.”
The Bench called for a report from Kondhwa Police Station and instructed Public Prosecutor Mankunwar Deshmukh to submit the case diary in a sealed cover for the court’s perusal. The matter will come up for hearing again on October 3.
The student had been rusticated from her college after the arrest. Another bench of the High Court later granted her bail, set aside her rustication, and allowed her to appear for her exams.
