Tamil Nadu

Case against student who raised anti-BJP slogans in flight quashed by Madras HC

In 2018, Tamil Nadu BJP’s then president Tamilisai Soundararajan had filed a complaint against Sofia.

Written by : TNM Staff

Providing relief to Sofia Lois, the student-activist, who raised slogans against the then Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party chief Tamilisai Soundararajan, the Madras High Court on Wednesday, August 16, quashed the five-year-old case. The court said that the case against Sofia was a non-cognisable offence, and that police had no jurisdiction to investigate the matter. 

In 2018, Sofia, who was traveling to Thoothukudi in the same flight with Tamilisai, shouted slogans saying, “fascist BJP government down down” inside the aircraft, shortly after it landed. Sofia made these slogans in the aftermath of the Thoothukudi’s Sterlite protest in which 13 people were killed in police firing. 

Enraged by the sloganeering, Tamilisai engaged in a verbal fight with Sofia at the airport and subsequently filed a complaint against her. 

Speaking to TNM advocate D Geetha who argued Sofia’s case said, “The court said that raising slogans did not come under a cognisable offence; and the police cannot investigate the case under section 155 code of criminal procedure (No police officer shall investigate a non- cognizable case without the order of a Magistrate). The court also pointed out that the slogan ‘fascist BJP government down down’ did not constitute an offence.” 

According to the lawyer, the court said that the slogan was a trivial matter. 

“We had also argued against the intervention of BJP president Annamalai in the case. But the court did not consider it. Nevertheless, we are happy with the result,” she expressed. 

Tamilisai who is at present serving as the Governor of Telangana and Puducherry had earlier alleged that Sofia could be a terrorist. Sofia, who belongs to a Dalit community, was subjected to harassment for her act, forcing her father to approach the Tamil Nadu Human Rights Commission. 

Following the verdict, Sofia in her tweet, reiterated the slogan and wrote, “After almost five years, today the Madras high court has quashed the FIR and charge sheet against me.”

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