Chandigarh, Jan 23 (IANS): The Punjab and Haryana High Court here on Thursday issued a notice to Punjab on registration of a case against Raveena Tandon and Farah Khan for hurting religious sentiments.

Hearing the petition, seeking quashing of the case registered last month, Justice Ashok Kumar Verma issued directions against initiation of coercive steps against them.

The Punjab Police had registered second case against actress Raveena Tandon, director-choreographer Farah Khan and comedian Bharti Singh on December 28 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments of Christians during a TV show.

The case was registered in Ferozepur cantonment. Earlier, it had registered a case in Ajnala of the Amritsar district on the complaint of Sonu Jafar, head of the Christian Front.

Abhinav Sood, counsel for petitioners, said the first information report (FIR) was illegal, bad in law and should be quashed. Referring to allegations in the FIR, he said the petitioners were accused of cracking a joke and hurting religious sentiments of a particular community.

There was nothing that could lead to the presumption that the act was intended to hurt the religious sentiments, he said.

Jafar alleged religious sentiments of Christians were hurt when the stars trivialised the word 'Hallelujah', while trying to pronounce it. 'Hallelujah' is a Hebrew word, which means 'Praise ye, Yah', referring to the Lord.