The Supreme Court on Tuesday made absolute an order for interim protection from arrest to Indore-based cartoonist Hemant Malviya, who has been booked for allegedly depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in an allegedly dignified manner, The Hindu reported.

On July 15, the court had granted him interim protection from coercive action. The order was made final on Tuesday, after which the Supreme Court disposed of Malviya’s petition for anticipatory bail.

A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria recorded that Malviya had complied with its earlier direction to issue apologies on his social media handles, The Hindu reported.

The court, however, allowed the Madhya Pradesh police to move for cancellation of relief if Malviya failed to cooperate with the investigation.

On August 23, the cartoonist had published an apology on Facebook in line with the court’s order.

On July 14, the cartoonist had agreed to delete the post after being criticised by the Supreme Court.

Malviya had moved the top court challenging a Madhya Pradesh High Court order that denied him anticipatory bail in the case.

The case

Malviya had published the original cartoon on January 6, 2021, which depicted Modi as a doctor administering an injection to a man dressed in what may have appeared to some as the uniform of the RSS.

The RSS is the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

It was accompanied with the Hindi caption: “Why are you worried? Serum’s Poonawala has said that the vaccine only has water, you won’t die from the side effect of water!”

This was a reference to Serum Institute of India’s Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla alleging that many Covid-19 vaccines in the market were only as effective as water.

According to the High Court order, a Facebook user had republished the cartoon, but replaced the caption with another that made references to the caste census, the Pahalgam terror attack and the contentious Waqf Act.

Malviya had shared the altered version of his cartoon on Facebook on May 1, writing that anyone could use any of his cartoons by writing their own names and captions. All his cartoons were for the public, by the public and dedicated to the public, he said.

Based on this, a RSS member had filed a complaint, alleging that Malviya had posted objectionable content on Facebook that defamed the Hindutva organisation and hurt religious sentiments.

Malviya was booked in May under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, acts intended to outrage religious feelings, intentional insult and electronically publishing or transmitting material containing sexually explicit acts.

Malviya had earlier argued that he was falsely implicated in the case and that his work was merely satire. He had also said that the comments about the caricature on Facebook were not his own, and therefore, he could not be held responsible for them.

Also read: Why MP High Court ordered a cartoonist to be arrested for lampooning Modi and RSS

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