Award-winning film director Adoor Gopalakrishnan has questioned the decision of a court in Bihar to investigate him, and 48 other prominent persons on the charge of sedition for having penned a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing worry over the increasing instances of cow vigilantism fuelled lynchings of minorities and Dalits in the country.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court in Muzzafarpur had recently allowed a miscellaneous criminal petition filed by a local lawyer seeking prosecution of the petitioners on the charge of sedition.

Mr. Adoor told newspersons in Thiruvananthapuram that the petition was “frivolous and infringed on the freedom of expression” guaranteed by the Constitution.

The 49 citizens from different walks of life had merely written to the Prime Minister about their apprehensions about the unbridled right-wing drift in society and the majoritarian politics that seemed to be dividing the country along religious lines. None of the signatories to the petition was politicians. They were concerned citizens, he said.

Mr. Adoor indicated that he and the others would seek legal recourse against the order in higher courts.

The eminent personalities had said in their letter that they feared that off late the incantation Jai Shri Ram had become a clarion call for cow vigilantes to incite their fellow activists to unleash violence against those who did not subscribe to their religious views.

Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap and Aparna Sen are among the other respondents in the case.