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India: Law ’Prevailing Climate of Hate’: SC Tells Govt to Take Suo Motu Action on Hate Speech or Face Contempt
SC Agrees to Hear Fresh Plea Challenging Release of Convicts in Bilkis Bano Case
Friday 28 October 2022, by
Law
’Prevailing Climate of Hate’: SC Tells Govt to Take Suo Motu Action on Hate Speech or Face Contempt
’This is the 21st century. Where have we reached in the name of religion? Contempt will be initiated if the authorities fail to act,’ the top court said.
The Supreme Court of India. Photo: Pinakpani/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Wire Staff
21/Oct/2022
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday, October 21, called on the Union and state governments to take suo motu action against hate speeches without waiting for a complaint to be filed, irrespective of the religion of the person who makes such speeches.
Taking a strong note of the “prevailing climate of hate in the country” and the alleged total inaction of the authorities in such cases, the apex court warned of contempt charges against those officials who fail to act in such instances.
“This is the 21st century. Where have we reached in the name of religion? Contempt will be initiated if the authorities fail to act,” NDTV quoted the division bench of Justices K.M. Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy as saying.
The court was hearing a plea by one Shaheen Abdullah, who had moved the court seeking directions to the Union and state governments to initiate a credible probe into hate speeches across the country. Abdullah sought the directions of the top court to check the “growing menace of targeting and terrorising (of) the Muslim community in India”.
In response, the court ordered law enforcement officials in Delhi along with Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments to file action-taken reports on hate speeches in their jurisdiction so far. It said, according to NDTV, that the state of affairs in India was “shocking for a country that is supposed to be religion-neutral”.
“The constitution of India envisages Bharat as a secular nation and fraternity, assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the country are guiding principles enshrined in the Preamble. There cannot be fraternity unless members of the community drawn from different religions or castes are able to live in harmony,” the court said, according to Livelaw.in.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared as counsel for the petitioner, drew the attention of the court to a recent gathering of Hindutva organisations in Delhi where West Delhi MP of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Parvesh Verma along with others made hate comments against members of the Muslim community. Verma, for his part, had called upon the Hindu community to resort to a “total boycott” of “these people” in a veiled reference to Muslims.
After Sibal thanked the judges for their “stern order” against hate speeches, they said, “We feel the court is charged with the duty to protect fundamental rights and also protect and preserve the constitutional values in particular the rule of law and the secular democratic character of the nation.”
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SC Agrees to Hear Fresh Plea Challenging Release of Convicts in Bilkis Bano Case
The SC bench is also considering petitions filed by CPI(M)’s Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, activist Roop Rekha Varma, TMC MP Mahua Moitra, ex-IPS officer Meeran Chadha Borwankar, ex-IFS officer Madhu Badhuri, and activist Jagdeep Chhokar.
Bilkis Bano. Photo: File
The Wire Staff
21 oct 22
New Delhi: The Supreme Court agreed on Friday, October 21, to hear a fresh plea moved by a women’s organisation, challenging the remission of sentence and the release of convicts who in 2002 gang-raped Bilkis Bano and murdered 14 people, some of whom were her family members, during the Gujarat riots.
A bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and C.T. Ravikumar tagged the matter with the main petition and said it would be heard along with it.
The top court will hear the plea filed by the National Federation of Indian Women, challenging the remission of sentence and the release of convicts in the case. The seven-decade-old organisation is headed by Aruna Roy and is the women’s wing of the Communist Party of India.
In August, senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Subhashini Ali, independent journalist and filmmaker Revati Laul, and former philosophy professor and activist Roop Rekha Varma filed a PIL against the remission of sentence.
The top court bench is also considering the petitions filed by Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, ex-IPS officer Meeran Chadha Borwankar, ex-IFS officer Madhu Badhuri, and activist Jagdeep Chhokar.
The 11 men convicted in the case walked out of the Godhra sub-jail on August 15 after the Gujarat government allowed their release under its remission policy – with the permission of the Union government.
The court had, on October 18, said the Gujarat government’s reply to petitions challenging the remission is “very bulky,” and in it, a series of judgments have been quoted but factual statements are missing.
It granted time to the petitioners to file their response to the Gujarat government’s affidavit and said it will hear the matter on November 29.
Though the Gujarat government had told the Supreme Court that the 11 men were released because of their “good behaviour”, reports have emerged that one of them was accused of harassing a woman while he was out on parole.
The reports also said that the men had spent nearly or over 1,000 days outside prison prior to their release.
