The Supreme Court on May 19 gave petitioners liberty to approach its Vacation Bench during the summer holidays for urgent relief in case hate speeches continue to be made across the country while local authorities fail to act.
The court’s last regular working day is May 20 before it closes for summer vacations till July.
“Innocent people get hurt in such communal frenzy... We should be entitled to approach the Vacation Bench for appropriate remedy,” senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Qurban Ali, a journalist, and Anjana Prakash, a former High Court judge, urged the court.
A Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said the appropriate guidelines issued by the court for police and civil authorities to counter hate speeches were already in existence.
Mr. Sibal submitted, “These guidelines are not being followed by them... Events are being held across where hate speeches are made.”
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, for the petitioners, stated that in some cases the same persons spoke at multiple events. “These persons have the audacity to go to different events to make hate speeches,” she said.
The court gave the petitioners permission to approach the Vacation Bench for appropriate remedy in case of urgent necessity.
Centre to study plea
Meanwhile, the Central government said it would examine advocate Ashwini Upadhyay’s separate petition to strengthen anti-hate laws after referring to the Law Commission’s 2017 recommendations and existing international laws against the crime.
The court scheduled the case for hearing in July.
Mr. Ali and Ms. Prakash had referred to the events in Haridwar and Delhi in December 2021 where hate speeches were allegedly delivered with “the apparent objective of declaring war against a significant section of the Indian citizenry”. They have sought an independent, credible and impartial investigation into the alleged incidents of hate speeches against the Muslim community.
The petitioners have highlighted in the apex court that “hate speeches consisted of open calls for genocide of Muslims in order to achieve ethnic cleansing. The speeches are not mere hate speeches but amount to an open call for murder of an entire community. The speeches thus, pose a grave threat not just to the unity and integrity of our country but also endanger the lives of millions of Muslim citizens”.
