The bid to launch a police investigation into Delhi Art Gallery for exhibiting paintings by the late artist MF Husain has been turned down, with a Sessions Court choosing instead to let the matter proceed as a private complaint.
Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler upheld the earlier ruling of the Magistrate, who had declined to direct an FIR despite allegations that the paintings offended Hindu sentiments.
The complaint was filed by advocate Amita Sachdeva, who said she came across the paintings during a gallery visit in December 2024 and found them objectionable. When she later returned with the investigating officer, the paintings had been removed. Although the court ordered seizure of the artworks, police concluded that no cognizable offence had been established and refused to file an FIR.
Sachdeva pressed on, challenging the Magistrate’s refusal before the Sessions Court. But the higher court found that the evidence already seized—including the artworks and CCTV records—was sufficient for her to attempt to prove her claims in a complaint case.
Judge Laler observed that Sachdeva could rely on her own photographs, testimony, and potential witness accounts to demonstrate whether the exhibition crossed into deliberate insult of religious sentiments under Section 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. A police probe, the court reasoned, was not necessary at this stage.
The ruling underlined that proving “deliberate and malicious intent” would depend on circumstantial context rather than forensic testing of the paintings. The Magistrate, it added, retained the power to call for police inquiry later if needed.
With this, the Sessions Court dismissed Sachdeva’s revision plea, leaving the case to proceed strictly as a private complaint.
