Court drops ‘distribute Quran’ bail condition

Patna : A local court in Jharkhand has modified its earlier order asking a girl to distribute five copies of the Quran at various educational institutions as a precondition for getting bail in a case. The girl was accused of posting objectionable content on Facebook.

The modification in court order follows strong protests by the girl, various Hindu organisations, lawyers and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders over the bail condition.

As the order blew into a major controversy and drew strong protests from various quarters, the investigating officer (IO) in the case filed a petition in the court on Wednesday afternoon and prayed for removing the bail pre-condition saying he had been facing difficulties in implementing the order.

“The IO has prayed that the condition of donating the Holy Quran by the petitioner may be done away with because of difficulties in its implementation … The state has prayed for modification of the said bail order and modifying the condition to that extent,” said the judge said in its fresh order.

“Having gone through the petition and heard the submission ... the order was passed by this court ... allowing regular bail to the petitioner Richa Bharti, in view of the aforesaid submission ... this court modifies its earlier order by dropping the additional condition of distribution of copies of the Holy Quran by the petitioner. Accordingly, order dated 15/07/2019 is modified up to this extent. The remaining order will remain the same,” the judged mentioned in his fresh order issued on Wednesday.

Bharti, a commerce student, was arrested by the Jharkhand police on July 12 for supposedly sharing an objectionable post against Muslims on Facebook and sent to jail the same day. Three days later on July 15, she was granted bail by the court, with the condition that she would gift five copies of the Quran to various education institutions.

The aforesaid bail condition, however, drew strong protests by various groups. While the accused girl publicly refused to follow the court order saying that violates her fundamental rights, various Hindu organisations also came out in her support.

Then came the lawyers from the Ranchi District Bar Council who not only boycotted the court of the judge passing this order but also sought his transfer.

The girl said she was not willing to obey the court’s order. “If today I am being told to distribute Quran, tomorrow I could be asked to offer namaz and then to convert to Islam! I’m not going to do that,” she told the media on Wednesday.