PTI

Kochi, May 23

The Kerala High Court on Monday restrained the police from arresting senior politician and former MLA P C George until May 26 in a prison case registered towards him for making a hate speech.

Considering the anticipatory bail plea moved by George, the excessive court docket granted him interim aid with situations. The court docket will take up the case on Thursday (May 26).

George moved the excessive court docket searching for anticipatory bail, days after a classes court docket in Thiruvananthapuram denied him bail within the case.

George, who has been untraceable since Saturday, in his bail plea within the excessive court docket stated the prosecution resorted to a “pick and choose game” and highlighted “stray sentences” from a 40-minute-long speech.

Kochi metropolis police had registered a case towards George on May 10 for his objectionable remarks throughout a speech, which he delivered in reference to a temple pageant at Vennala in Ernakulam district.

George’s anticipatory bail was dismissed by the classes court docket on Saturday saying his feedback prima facie seem like of such a nature as to advertise disharmony, hatred and ailing will between communities.

“At any stretch of imagination, the offences as alleged will not be attracted in this case. The prosecution resorted to a pick and choose game and highlighted certain stray sentences from a 40-minute-long speech and unilaterally declared it as offensive which is not justifiable,” George stated in his anticipatory bail plea within the excessive court docket.

George stated he was expressing “his anxiety over a negligible percentage of people involving in anti-national terrorist activities”.

“These are expressions of a patriot who only wanted the integrity of the nation to be kept intact and to highlight the need of corrective measures,” George stated.

He additionally claimed in his plea that his “observations were based on authentic statistics” and a few others have been what he has identified within the Legislative Assembly.

The classes court docket, in its order, had famous that the current speech was made by George inside 10 days of his launch on bail in the same case registered at Thiruvananthapuram.

The current case was registered underneath Indian Penal Code Sections 153 (selling enmity between totally different teams) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, supposed to outrage spiritual emotions of any class by insulting its faith or spiritual beliefs).

George, who was the chief whip when the Congress-led UDF was in energy, had earlier sparked off an argument by asking non-Muslims in Kerala to keep away from eating places run by the neighborhood.

Addressing a programme organised as a part of the Ananthapuri Hindu Maha Sammelan in Thiruvananthapuram final month, the previous Kerala Congress chief had alleged that tea laced with “drops causing impotence” have been bought in Muslim-run eating places to show folks “infertile” in a bid to “seize control” of the nation.

As the remarks triggered widespread political controversy, a case was registered and he was arrested on May 1 however was launched on bail by a court docket in Thiruvananthapuram on the identical day.

George, who represented the Poonjar constituency within the state Assembly for 33 years, had misplaced his bastion to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate within the 2021 Assembly polls in a triangular battle.