Thread by @barandbench

Supreme Court to shortly hear a batch of cases highlighting inaction by states in acting against instances of hate speech made against Muslims and Christians.

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Court: What happened to the contempt? You must understand…

Respondents: We have filed a reply.

Court: We don’t have it.

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Each of those individual cases has been dealt with: ASG Raju.

Court: How many FIRs?

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ASG: We have filed FIRs in cases where petitioners have not pointed.

Court: that is your duty, you were not fulfilling it so we have passed orders.

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Court: When Pasha came on Thursday, he didn’t ask for action against person from the Muslim community.. we said it should be irrespective of community. There is complaint that this great country which we are home to..

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SG: May I say something very fundamental? No one, the government, justifies any hate speech. If it is done..

Court: This is an offence which affects…

SG: ..which affects the fabric of the country.

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SG: In one petition, notice is issued we are receiving IA after IA.. there are judgements that when a direct prayer for registration of FIR.. There is a remedy provided.

Last evening we received three applications

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Petitioners: Problem is, before hate speech will there not be prevention?

Court: Exactly, incidents after incidents are happening. Should court intervene every-time?

Petitioners: The direction has to be pan-India.

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Petitioners: The private complaints.. the remaining remedy.. this is not like a singular case. It is a phenomenon.

SG: Kindly post it for that issue.. what will be done by the court when there is already a judgement.. we’ll assist

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Petitioners: One suggestion, we can set up a committee.

This is a pan-India issue.

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Court: For example in north east, is there this kind of issue there? At least, not that I know. You can’t say it is pan-India.

SG: it is literally overstatement.

Court: There are areas.

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Court: Does anyone have any issue with our interim order? As guardians of law and order, the police should take action we say. Can court take cognisance without sanction? No. We are conscious of that. For preliminary investigation, I don’t think sanction is required.

Court: We only have public good in mind.

SG: We share that sentiment. But there has to be a line. There cannot be 500 IAs.

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Petitioners: Lordships have passed a very strong order .. after that still there are so many incidents where we have to move contempt proceedings. The number of IAs support this case.

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Court: Both us are totally apolitical.

SG: No dispute on that.

Court: We don’t care if it is party A, B or C. We only care about the Constitution and the laws of the country. Our allegiance is to the oath we have taken.

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Court: If you bring in politics, we will not… that is why we said in our order, irrespective of religion!

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Advocate General for Uttarakhand: We are disputing maintainability.. these petitions may be put for hearing.. we’ll set out in light of the Constitution bench judgement.

We have taken action.

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Counsel seeks direction to DG of West Bengal that action be taken.

Petitioners: the order may be made applicable countrywide.

SG: Let all states be joined as party.

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Order: The petitioner requests that states and UTs other than those which were parties and similar order (21.10.2022) may be passed.

Court agrees to extend the order to all states and UTs.

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This order passed by the court in October 2022 extended to all States and Union Territories in the country.

The orders asks police to take suo moto action against cases of hate speech without looking at religion.

barandbench.com/news/hate-spee…

Court directs that counter affidavit in the contempt case be served on other parties.

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Petitioners recommend a nodal officer be appointed for each state.

Bench suggests one should be there in each district.

Petitioners say a procedure needs to be set out for take down of hate speech from social media.

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Court to ASG: You should tell your client that contempt should not be taken lightly. Our only object is public good. We have so many other cases, why are we taking this case? Rule of law, harmony

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Another petitioner submits that calls of beheading have been made across the country: This is very serious. These calls, violence is happening. It is a very fundamental issue.

Court: Have you gone to magistrate?

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Counsel: Not me, but other clients have gone and no action was taken. It has happened in Kerala, WB, Bihar.

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ASG: Those practicing in lower courts.. they know that there are two remedies. It has been large number of cases that writ is not a remedy.

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@AshwiniUpadhyay: Courts are interpreting hate speech differently because there’s no clear directions.

Court: How do you define hate speech?

Upadhyay: Something offensive on caste, religion…

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Court: This is a huge country. Hate speech depends largely on context, language and even facial expressions.

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Court to continue hearing the case on May 12.

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