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Intention to cause disorder or incite people to violence is the sine qua non of the offence under Section 153 A IPC
One cannot rely on strongly worded and isolated passages for proving the charge nor indeed can one take a sentence here and a sentence there and connect them by a meticulous process of inferential reasoning.
Mens rea was held to be a necessary ingredient for the offence under Section 153 A and Section 505 (2). The common factor of both the sections being promotion of feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will between different religious or racial or linguistics or religious groups or castes or communities, it is necessary that at least two such groups or communities should be involved.
Words used in the alleged criminal speech should be judged from the standards of reasonable, strong-minded, firm and courageous men, and not those of weak and vacillating minds, nor of those who scent danger in every hostile point of view. The standard of an ordinary reasonable man or as they say in English law "the man on the top of a Clapham omnibus" should be applied.
Mere repugnancy of the ideas expressed is insufficient to constitute the crime attracting penalty.
