The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Karnataka government’s view on whether chanting “Jai Shri Ram” inside a mosque would amount to the criminal offence of outraging the religious feelings of another community.

A bench of Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Sandeep Mehta refrained from issuing any formal notice while dealing with an appeal filed by some management committee members of the Badriya Jama Masjid in south Karnataka challenging a September 13 judgment of the high court quashing the criminal cases registered against two youths who were booked last year for raising “Jai Shri Ram” slogans inside the mosque and warning that they would not allow Muslims to live in peace.

The apex court wondered how an offence could be made out merely if someone had chanted “Jai Shri Ram”.

“Let’s accept they were shouting a particular religious phrase or a name. But how is that an offence?” the court asked.

Senior advocate Devdatt Kamat, appearing for the appellants, argued that deliberately raising slogans associated with a particular religion at the place of worship of another religion amounted to inciting communal disharmony and the offence was punishable under various sections, including the one that deals with “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc; and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony”.

Kamat argued that since an FIR had been registered against the two persons who raised the slogans, the law should have been allowed to take its due course, but the high court chose to quash the FIR on a petition filed by the accused.

The top court pointed out that the high court had, after examining the materials on record, observed that no offences were made under IPC Sections 447 (criminal trespass) and 503 (criminal intimidation). The Supreme Court posted the matter for further hearing to the second week of January.