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Supreme court to hear plea against Hate Speech.
The Supreme court has decided to hear a plea against the hate speech delivered in Haridwar and Delhi between 17th – 19th December 2021. The bench headed by NV Ramana and consisted of justice Surya Kant and Hima Kohli.The three-day dharam sanasad held at Haridwar saw series of hate speeches made against the Muslim Community and calling for violence and assassination. The speakers of the sansad also targeted former Prime Minister Manmohan singh and invoked Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse saying “I wish I was an MP there holding a revolver; I would became Nathuram Godse and pumped all the six bullets into him inside Parliament.”
Journalist Qurban Ali, a former judge of the Patna high court, and senior counsel Anjana Prakash filed the petition, which also requested an independent and impartial probe into the subject of hate speech against the Muslim community, also known as the Special Investigation Team (SIT). Meanwhile, the sansad's organisers have organised a new demonstration against the creation of the Special Investigation Team and the FIR. The FIRs were only filed because the Uttarakhand police were afraid of "Jihadis," according to the organisers.
After the videos went viral, the Uttarakhand Police filed a FIR on December 23, 2021, accusing Sant Dharamdas Maharaj, Sadhvi Annapoorna alias Pooja Pandey, Yati Narsinghanand, and Sagar Sindhu Maharaj of inciting hatred and hurting religious sensibilities. For the second event, a similar lawsuit was filed in Delhi.
A complaint was also filed on December 27 against Suresh Chavhanke, the editor-in-chief of Sudarshan News, for his hate speech at a Hindu Yuva Vahini event in Delhi on December 19. It was addressed to the Delhi commissioner and, as a result, the person in charge of the Govindpuri police station.The petitioners have sought the Supreme Court to direct the police to follow the standards set down in Tehseen Poonawalla vs Union of India, and to clarify the parameters of the police's "duty of care in inquiry. "Horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be allowed to inundate the law of the land," the court said in the Tehseen Poonawalla case, and "earnest action and tangible steps must be taken to protect citizens from the repeated pattern of violence that cannot be allowed to become 'the new normal.'"
Kapil Sibal a senior advocate, informed that no action has been taken till now against those who made the hate speeches despite the FIR being filed by the Uttarakhand police. The Haridwar incident was organized by Yati Narsinghanand and the other in Delhi by 'Hindu Yuva Vahini' allegedly "calling for genocide of members" of a community, the plea said. He also commented “You hear this separately. What is being done. No quick steps are being taken. Dharam Sansad' (events) are taking place in Kurukshetra, Dasna, Aligarh, and other states where elections are taking place. Several clauses are triggered as a result of this." Around 76 Supreme Court lawyers had previously written to Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, requesting suo motu cognisance of the 'hate speech' and calls for 'ethnic cleansing' made at two religious festivals held lately in Delhi and Haridwar.
