Bihar police have decided to recommend the closure of the sedition case lodged in Muzaffarpur against nine eminent personalities and said they would prosecute the complainant for his “false” allegations.

“The case was supervised by Muzaffarpur SSP Manoj Kumar. The complainant could not produce supporting documents or evidence, not even the alleged letter written by the 49 people which may support his claim of commission of any offence,” ADG, headquarters, Jitendra Kumar said.

“On this and other circumstantial basis, the case is found to be false and order has been issued by the Muzaffarpur SSP to the investigating officer to submit the final report as false.”

A Muzaffarpur court had last week got the police to register the FIR against the nine for an open letter they and 40 others had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July condemning the rise in lynchings. Forty-five unidentified people have also been mentioned as defendants in the case, registered on a plea from local advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha.

The nine named are filmmakers Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aparna Sen and Mani Ratnam, actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Konkona Sen Sharma and Revathi, classical singer Shubha Mudgal and historian Ramachandra Guha.

The police will recommend Ojha’s prosecution under penal code sections which carry a maximum punishment of seven years in jail.

The police’s decision comes amid a blame game between ruling allies JDU and BJP over floods in Patna, which led to a BJP boycott of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Dussehra event. Deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said his party had nothing to do with the case.