By Debby Jain
Rendering a long-awaited judgment, the Supreme Court recently closed a batch of petitions seeking reliefs against various alleged hate speech offences. While it refused to issue a continuing mandamus for ensuring compliance with earlier directions issued relating to hate speeches/offences, the Court clarified that prior sanction is not required for a Magistrate to order registration of FIR
under Section 156(3) of CrPC. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta dismissed all the writ petitions seeking reliefs regarding hate speeches/offences and disposed of other special leave petitions and contempt petitions (alleging violation of the Court’s order for suo motu FIR). Earlier, the Court had de-tagged from the batch the 2021 case of a Muslim cleric in Noida. In the judgment, it further ordered that 3 more cases remain pending to await the response of the respondent-authorities.
In this article, we look at the matters which were disposed of by the top Court vide its judgment in the hate speech batch of cases. BJP leader Anurag Thakur’s ‘Goli Maaro’ speechIn CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat’s plea against alleged hate speeches by BJP leaders Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma in the year 2020, the Court took a view that no cognizable offense for registration of an FIR was made out.
This story was originally published in livelaw.in. Read the full story here.