Section 295-A IPC Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.—
Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
The bench also referred to the findings of a constitution bench of the Supreme Court in Ramji Lal Modi v. State of UP, AIR 1957 SC 620, wherein the SC judge held:
“Section 295A only punishes the aggravated form of insult to religion when it is perpetrated with the deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of that class. The calculated tendency of this aggravated form of insult is clearly to disrupt the public order and the section, which penalises such activities, is well within the protection of clause (2) of Article 19 as being a law imposing reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a).
Post-independence, the constitutionality of Section 295A was challenged in 1957, in the Ramji Lal Modi v State of Uttar Pradesh case. Though the five-judge bench upheld the impugned Section’s constitutionality, in light of recent jurisprudential developments, the judgment does not hold up as good law.
Even though it finds its genesis in the colonial era, Section 295A was not found within the original draft of the Indian Penal Code of 1860. It was inserted to rectify the deficiencies of the original iteration of Section 153A, in light of a couple of cases which led to great furore of a communal nature across the nation. Section 153A was a provision aimed at penalising acts prejudicial to harmony, which promoted enmity between different groups on various grounds. These grounds, enlisted in an inexhaustive manner, include religion.
