Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju has been booked for sedition over his Facebook post in which he wrote that Kashmir should be offered to Pakistan on the condition that it also takes Bihar.
"Pakistanis, let us end our dispute once and for all. We offer you Kashmir, but on the condition that you also take Bihar. It is a package deal. You have to take the package, or none at all....Deal," Katju wrote on September 25.
Taking this as an insult to his state, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, without naming him, asked whether Katju was the "mai baap" of Bihar.
"Ghar baithe 'mai-baap' ban rahe hai Bihar kaa...(trying to become guardian of Bihar while sitting at home)," Kumar said. "A few people are gripped with disease of getting printed in newspaper."
Katju's response in another FB post: "Nitish Kumar says that I regard myself as the 'mai baap' of Bihar. No Nitishji, I am not the 'mai baap' of Biharis but their Shakuni Mama."
Following the uproar over his remarks, Katju said that he was joking, but chided his critics for not having any sense of humour. The retired judge said that those offended by his post should move the Supreme Court to ban Bihari jokes. "What is wrong with Biharis? Can't they take a joke," he wrote.
In a post on September 26, he said that Pakistan had rejected the offer because "the idea of getting Bihar too has horrified them out of their wits."
When JD(U) General Secretary K.C. Tyagi first suggested that Katju should be booked for sedition, he said, "I have a better suggestion. I should be charged under Lunatics Act."
While the Patna police booked Katju following a complaint by a JD(U) legislator, Neeraj Kumar, a separate sedition case was filed against him by a lawyer, Arvind Kumar in court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Patna.
"I suggest Biharis take their complaint against me to the U.N. When 'cheer haran' of Draupadi was being done, she appealed to Lord Krishna to save her honour," Katju wrote on Wednesday.
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