Dharam Sansad: Now Army veterans move court seeking probe by SIT into hate speeches

Dharam Sansad Image:PTI

On April 22, 2022, the Supreme Court considered a petition filed by three retired officers of the Armed Forces seeking probe by a new Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the alleged hate speeches delivered at the Dharam Sansad religious events organised at Haridwar and Delhi between December 17 and 19, 2021.

The petition was filed by Major General SG Vombatkere, Colonel PK Nair and Major Priyadarshi Chowdhary through Advocates Senthil Jagadeesan and Vinayak Bhandari

The bench posted the petition to May 9 to be heard along with the PIL filed by journalist Qurban Ali and Senior Advocate Anjana Prakash seeking similar action against hate speech.

According to LiveLaw, Senior Advocate Shyam Divan appearing for petitioners submitted, “We are highly decorated officers of the Army. The regiments and the troops which they have controlled during their careers, those subordinate to them, are drawn from various and different communities. The petition is essentially directed against aspects of hate speech which were made between 17th and 19th of December 2021. Apart from Union of India, the two respondents are Uttarakhand and the Government of NCT.”

Referring to the report filed by the Uttarakhand Government in the previous matter, Justice Khanwilkar asked the Counsel to go through the response of the said State to see if the issue still survives, as Sibal had raised something about Uttarakhand but had not pressed the issue, to which Counsel Divan responded, “The issue has survived. We have given translation of the speech along with the minutes etc.”

However, the Court still directed that the copy of Uttarakhand’s response to the previous matter, and Delhi Police Commissioner’s reply affidavit in the leading case, be made available to Counsel Divan, as it thinks that it is possible that the issues raised by the petitioners in the previous matter pertaining to events unfolded in the state of Uttarakhand may be similar to the issues raised in the present writ petition.

Most importantly, the petitioners have opined that such hate speeches can even affect the battle efficiency of our Armed Forces and in turn compromise national security. The petitioners have argued that such incitement to violence together with public expressions of hate constitute a serious breach of internal security and could also tear apart the social character of our nation, as reported by LiveLaw.