On January 17, while hearing a urgent applications filed in ongoing petitions to curb on hate speech, the Supreme Court has issued an order directing the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police at Yavatmal, Maharashtra and Raipur, Chhattisgarh to take ‘appropriate steps’ to ensure that no incitement to violence or hate speech occurs at the rallies scheduled in the said districts in the coming few days of January.
In its order, as per a report in the LiveLaw, the bench stated “No incitement to violence or hate speech can be permitted. We accordingly direct the nodal officer to take appropriate action. The DMs and SPs of Raipur and Yavatmal to take notice of the allegations and take appropriate steps as advised and required.”
The said order was passed by a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta after Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal raised concerns over delivery of potential hate speeches at rallies planned by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and Bharatiya Janata Party legislator T Raja Singh later this week. In his application, Advocate Sibal, who was representing the petitioner, had also included transcripts of certain alleged hate speeches that had been made by the far-right HJS organisation and BJP MLA Raja Singh which had resulted in incitement of violence and hatred against the Muslim community. The aforementioned application had been filed in the case of Shaheen Abdullah v. Union of India and ors, which is a batch of writ petitions that had been filed against the rising instances of hate speeches in India.
The application had, instead, sought for the Court to direct the authorities to refuse permission for the rallies proposed by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and Bharatiya Janata Party at Yavatmal (on January 18) and Raipur (from January 19 to Jan 25) respectively, as per the LiveLaw report.
Advocate Sibal also forcefully shed light to the inaction against the perpetrators even after first information reports are lodged against them. Urging the court to immediately intervene, Sibal highlighted the number of FIRs that have been lodged against the BJP MLA in question which have failed to deter him from continuing to deliver alleged hate speeches. As per the LiveLaw report, Sibal stated, “When the event takes place, we come to this court and an FIR is lodged. But nothing is done. Then he continues with this kind of speeches. What is the point of all this then? See the kind of hatred he is propagating!”
Advocate Sibal also emphasised that even after filing of the FIRs, no substantive action have been taken against Singh.
Though the Supreme Court bench declined to stop the rallies and take pre-emptive action against the future speeches that were going to be made by Singh, they took note of the transcripts of the speeches made by Singh previously and remarked that some of them were “certainly objectionable”.
In addition to this, the bench also noted that Singh had not been made party to the case which goes against the principle of natural justice as it does not provide Singh a change to be heard by the court. To this, Sibal responded by saying that Singh can be made a party to the case in pursuant to this and that such action cannot be permitted to be continued by the court. However, Justice Khanna told Sibal that the event will be over by that time. As per the report of Bar & Bench, Justice Khanna said “Let it be. By the time it is done, the event will be over.”
With this, the Court directed the administration to ensure that no incitement to violence or hate speech takes place in the rallies to be held by BJP MLA T Raja Singh. Furthermore, the Supreme Court bench urged the police to install CCTV cameras with recording facilities at the locations if felt necessary, so that perpetrators can be identified if anything untoward happens.
Towards the end, expressing his disappointment, Sibal said that such hate speeches and incidents of incitement of violence will keep on repeating till there is an intervention by the Supreme Court. Responding to the same, Justice Khanna stated, “We have passed orders. In one case, we had passed orders and it did stop. That is the positive part. Why only look at the negative aspect?”, as per the LiveLaw report.
The matter has now been adjourned to February 5, 2024.
It is essential to note that here that in the month of January 2024 itself, an FIR had been filed against T. Raja Singh for delivering an alleged hate speeches during a ‘Hindu Jan Aakrosh’ rally in Solapur. As per the report of Deccan Herald, on January 7, Singh had been booked for uttering objectionable statements against Muslims over the alleged issue of ‘Love-Jihad’. The said case has been registered under sections 153A (creating enmity between two different groups on ground of religion), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and others of the Indian Penal Code.
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