The bench of Justice S. K. Dwivedi of Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday quashed the complaint case against Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar for his statement calling Rahul Gandhi of the Congress as “poonch ka baal (hair of tail)” during his public address at Town Hall in Dhanbad on January 19, 2016.
In the original statement Tomar had referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “Mooch Ka Baal (hair of mustache)” while Rahul Gandhi as “poonch ka baal '' which peeved a Congress worker Mohammed Kalam Azad.
Azad lodged a court complaint stating that Tomar made an objectionable statement that hurt his sentiments. A warrant was issued against Tomar by the court of judicial magistrate R.K. Singh on June 5, 2019.
Tomar moved a criminal revision petition at the High Court against the case. The senior lawyer Jitendra Shankar Singh assisted by his junior Randhir Kumar argued and said that there was no merit in the case.
In another development, the High Court deferred the hearing of the petition challenging the recruitment policy of the Jharkhand Staff Selection (JSSC) Examination till February 16.
The petitioners Ramesh Hansda and Kushal Kumar have filed a petition in the High Court to challenge the recruitment rule. It has been mandatory for aspirants of the general category that they must have completed their matriculation and the intermediate from Jharkhand.
During the hearing, Supreme Court lawyer P Patwalia argued in favour of the new rule and cited cases of the Supreme Court. On this the division bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujeet Narayan Prasad deferred the hearing and asked the lawyer to submit all such Supreme Court orders related to the matter in the next hearing.