Police response sought on Swamy's plea for quashing article FIR

The Delhi High Court Friday issued notice to the city police on a plea of Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy seeking quashing of an FIR lodged against him for writing an inflammatory article in a Mumbai daily in 2011.

Justice Kailash Gambhir sought the police response by Aug 26.

Swamy, in his plea, said: "Whatever investigation has been done by the police in the past 21 months, no material has been found which would cause communal disharmony in society."

Delhi Police had on Oct 3, 2011 registered a case of spreading enmity between communities against Swamy for his remarks suggesting revoking the voting rights of Muslims.

A case was registered against him on a complaint from the National Commission for Minorities, for writing, in July 2011, the alleged inflammatory article intended to spread communal enmity, as per the complaint.

"In 2005, Swamy had written a book on terrorism in India and the content of the book did not cause any sort of communal disturbance but writing an article, which is based on the book, became offensive," contended senior advocate K.T.S. Tulsi, who appeared for Swamy.

He added that the investigation is going on from past 21 months and no case has been made out so far.

The Delhi High Court had in January 2012 granted Swamy anticipatory bail after he had given an undertaking in the court that he would refrain from writing such articles in future.

Police had registered a case under Section 153A (spreading enmity between communities) of Indian Penal Code for his newspaper article in July this year.