Key Highlights from Supreme Court’s Recent Hearing
The Supreme Court of India, while addressing a batch of petitions seeking measures to curb hate speeches, has made it clear that it will not entertain individual cases of violations. The bench, comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi, emphasized their focus on establishing an infrastructure or mechanism to handle hate speech cases, leaving individual cases to be dealt with by jurisdictional courts.
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During the hearing, Advocate Nizam Pasha suggested that individuals with a history of making hate speeches should not be permitted to address meetings. In response, Justice Khanna stated,
“We cannot deal with individual cases, we can’t have a pan-India approach. What we want to do is put the infrastructure or administrative mechanism in place and if there is any breach or problem, then you will have to go to the respective High Courts. We cannot do pan-India approach over here. It will become impossible for us to handle.”
The bench was hearing a total of seventeen petitions, some of which sought broad guidelines to curb hate crimes. Justice Khanna added that it would be impractical for the Supreme Court to deal with individual cases of violations, saying,
“If we do it across the country, every day we will be hearing one application.”
The conversation turned to a specific instance when Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain mentioned a contempt petition filed against Tamil Nadu Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin for his remarks against Sanatana Dharma. Justice Khanna reiterated the Court’s stance, stating,
“The contempt petition will not lie…go to the High Court. The contempt petition will not lie in this petition. If we start entertaining contempt, we will be flooded with it. We are making it very clear, we will not go into individual cases.”
Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay mentioned his PIL and highlighted the need to define hate speech. Justice Khanna responded,
“Hate speech has been defined by this Court, the question is of implementation and understanding how it is to be applied as to on which cases it is to be applied and on which it has not be applied. We cannot go into individual cases.”
Senior Advocate Siddharth Agarwal brought up the Special Leave Petition filed by CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat against the Delhi High Court’s judgment, which refused to order the registration of an FIR against BJP leaders Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma for alleged hate speech. Justice Khanna clarified that this SLP would be segregated from the batch and dealt with separately.
The bench adjourned the matters to February 5, 2024, and appointed nodal counsels from each side to prepare a chart indicating the parties in each petition and the reliefs claimed. This decision of the Supreme Court to focus on a systemic approach rather than individual cases marks a significant step in addressing the broader issue of hate speech in India.
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