The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the release of Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera on interim bail just hours after Assam police had arrested him on the Delhi airport tarmac over a comment he had made about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A swiftly convened special bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, which assembled at 3.30pm on an “urgent hearing” request from senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, passed an interim order directing Khera’s release and restraining any coercive action against him till February 28.

The bench, which included Justices M.R. Shah and P.S. Narasimha, questioned some of the charges filed by the Assam police against Khera — those of promoting enmity between groups and outraging religious feelings.

But it also expressed displeasure at Khera’s comments about the Prime Minister, saying “there has to be some level of discourse”.

The court issued notices to the states of Assam and Uttar Pradesh to club the three FIRs registered against Khera in Varanasi, Lucknow and Haflong (Assam) — all over the same remark — so they could be tried at one place.

The matter will be heard again on Tuesday.

Later, a Delhi court gave interim bail to Khera as directed by the apex court. Had the top court not granted the relief, the Assam police would have sought transit remand to take Khera to the northeastern state.

As the events related to the arrest of Khera unfolded at the airport around 1pm, Singhvi interrupted a constitution bench hearing relating to the Shiv Sena-Eknath Shinde controversy at 2pm, seeking urgent listing of the matter.

Justice Chandrachud immediately assured him that the constitution bench would break at 3.30pm and a special bench would be convened to deal with Khera’s arrest.

As soon as the hearing started, Singhvi said Khera had already apologised and said his comment had been a mistake.

Khera had on February 17 ascribed the middle name “Gautamdas” to Modi, apparently linking him to industrialist Gautam Adani. Modi’s middle name is “Damodardas”, which was the first name of his father.

Justice Chandrachud asked additional solicitor-general Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Assam police: “Ms Bhati, tell us prima facie how is offence made out under153A or 295?”

Penal section 153A deals with promoting enmity between groups on the grounds of religion, race, etc, and 295A with malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings.

Khera has also been booked under sections 500 (defamation) and 505 (statement conducive to public mischief). Section 500 entails a jail term of up to two years and the other three, imprisonment up to three years.

Under Section 41A, CrPC, in all cases for which the maximum punishment prescribed is seven years or less, the police have to first issue a notice to the accused to appear before them and respond to the charges. They cannot arrest a person directly unless it is warranted under extraordinary circumstances. Singhvi said the police had not followed this procedure before arresting Khera. Bhati said Khera’s comments were made in a manner that caused “disaffection among the people” and stressed that they were “made against the Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy”.

Singhvi argued: “I, for one, don’t believe in crossing boundaries. But if you have crossed boundaries, this can’t be the reaction. It was unfortunate. “He did a play on words which he shouldn’t have, asper me. I (Khera) genuinely got confused whether it is Damodardas or Gautamdas. This came on television. He also said, ‘I made a mistake’.” Singhvi added: “Your Lordships will protect him from further coercive steps…. Any amount of political speech, freedom of speech — you cannot invoke 153A.”

Bhati said: “Your Lordships will have to see the video; then we can see if it was a mistake or deliberate. It’s the demeanour in the video which counts. We’ll show the video now,” she said. She later played the two-minute video. The three judges discussed the content of the video among themselves. Justice Shah said “the gestures” made by Khera in the video were certainly not proper. Singhvi repeated that Khera had never defended it and had apologised. After passing the interim order, Justice Chandrachud cautioned Singhvi: “We have protected you, but there has to be some level of discourse.” Singhvi said Khera would later seek quashing of the FIRs before the appropriate high court.