‘Set country on fire’: Supreme Court sentences ex-BJP spokesman Nupur Sharma

Nupur Shar­ma made the offen­sive com­ments dur­ing a tele­vised debate ear­li­er this month (file)

The Supreme Court today accused for­mer BJP spokes­woman Nupur Shar­ma of incit­ing ten­sions with her com­ments on the Prophet Mohammed, say­ing: “She and her loose tongue have set the coun­try on fire”.

In unusu­al­ly strong com­ments, the court said she had to apol­o­gize to the coun­try. “The way she sparked emo­tion across the coun­try. This lady is sole­ly respon­si­ble for what is hap­pen­ing in the coun­try,” the judges said.

Nupur Shar­ma’s offen­sive remarks dur­ing a tele­vised debate ear­li­er this month sparked mas­sive protests in India, with sev­er­al Gulf states call­ing for strict rep­ri­mands on Indi­an diplo­mats. On Tues­day, a tai­lor in Udaipur who had sup­port­ed Nupur Shar­ma in a social media post was mur­dered on cam­era by two men who said they were “aveng­ing an insult to Islam”.

“She actu­al­ly has a loose tongue and has made all sorts of irre­spon­si­ble state­ments on TV and set the whole coun­try on fire. Still, she claims to be a lawyer with 10 years’ expe­ri­ence… She should have imme­di­ate­ly apol­o­gized for her com­ments “whole coun­try,” the court said, reject­ing Nupur Shar­ma’s peti­tion to merge the police com­plaints filed against her across the coun­try into one.

The Supreme Court con­demned Nupur Shar­ma and told her to apol­o­gize to the whole coun­try. The Supreme Court says she and her loose tongue set the whole coun­try on fire. The Supreme Court says her out­break is respon­si­ble for the unfor­tu­nate inci­dent in Udaipur where a tai­lor was murdered

— ANI (@ANI) July 1, 2022

In the peti­tion, filed on behalf of NV Shar­ma, the sus­pend­ed BJP leader claimed the video of her state­ments had been “imp­ish­ly manip­u­lat­ed” and “shared by anti-social elements”.

Asked about the “mis­lead­ing name” in her peti­tion, her attor­ney said she did not use her name because of the threats. The judges snapped, “She faces threats or has she become a secu­ri­ty threat?”

The court also reject­ed Nupur Shar­ma’s argu­ments about “equal treat­ment” and “no discrimination”.

“If you file FIRs against oth­ers, they’ll be arrest­ed imme­di­ate­ly, but if it’s against you, no one dared to touch you,” the judges said.

Her com­ments showed her “stub­born and arro­gant char­ac­ter,” accord­ing to the Supreme Court.

“What if she’s the spokes­woman for a party?

The judges added: “These state­ments are very dis­turb­ing and show arro­gance. What does she have to do with such state­ments? These state­ments have led to unfor­tu­nate events in the coun­try… These peo­ple are not reli­gious. They have no respect for oth­er reli­gions. These remarks were made for cheap pub­lic­i­ty or polit­i­cal agen­da or oth­er nefar­i­ous activities.”

Her lawyer replied that she was only respond­ing to a ques­tion from the pre­sen­ter dur­ing a tele­vised debate. When the lawyer referred to cit­i­zens’ right to speak, the judges snapped: “In a democ­ra­cy every­one has the right to speak. In a democ­ra­cy, the grass has the right to grow and the don­key has the right to eat.”

Nupur Shar­ma’s argu­ment to cite an ear­li­er order pro­tect­ing jour­nal­is­tic free­dom also failed.

“She can­not be put on a jour­nal­ist’s pedestal. When she jumps into a tele­vised debate and makes irre­spon­si­ble state­ments with­out con­sid­er­ing the impact and con­se­quences this will have on the fab­ric of soci­ety,” the Supreme Court said.