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The Court was hearing an appeal against last year's Delhi High Court judgment challenging a trial court decision that had refused to order registration of FIRs against Thakur and Verma
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice in a plea by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat seeking registration of FIRs against Union Minister Anurag Thakur and Bharatiya Janata Party Leader Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma for allegedly making hate speeches in the year 2020, at a rally in Rithala on January 27 and 28th.
A bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna deliberated on judicial pronouncements that exist for purposes of registration of FIRs against public servants while the lawyer for Karat informed Court that the wounds of the past will not be healed unless an FIR is registered against the political leaders.
"It is not necessary that for an offence to fall under section 153 and 153A (of the IPC), the statements have to be religious. It is enough if they are instigators or indirect. When all persons opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) were called traitors, it was a statement used to obviously pit one religion against the other, " the lawyer said, thrusting upon the fact that despite trials and tribulations, three years had passed but FIRs were not registered.
At this juncture, Justice Joseph said that the statement "Goli Maaro" was obviously not used as a medical prescription.
It is the petitioners case that during a rally in the national capital on January 27, 2020, Thakur used the slogan — “shoot the traitors”– after lashing out at anti-CAA protesters of Shaheen Bagh and Verma delivered an inflammatory speech against the protestors on January 28.
Noteworthily, the investigating report had stated that the the Hindi word for traitor's which was used by the leaders could not have been attributed to a person of any specific community and that Verma's speech could not have triggered the acts of violence that followed.
The plea in Supreme Court is against a Delhi High Court judgment in which Justice Chandra Dhari Singh of Delhi High Court had refused to interfere in a trial court order which stating that under the law sanction is required to be obtained from the competent authority for registration of FIR in the present facts.
The High Court had observed that bypassing the procedure under the Criminal Procedure Code Code was "in vogue these days". The judgment says, “The beauty of procedural law lies in the stages and remedies available during the course of a criminal proceeding.”
The question that was to be adjudicated by the court was whether the Magistrate was right while dismissing Karat and Tiwari's plea on the ground that they did not have jurisdiction because a sanction needs to be obtained to prosecute the persons against whom allegations were made.
To this effect, the court analysed the existing law on hate speech in conjuncture with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Enumerating on the facts, the judgment in appeal stated that Karat, on January 29, 2020 filed a complaint against Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma to the Commissioner of Police, Delhi asking for registration of FIR against the two directly, without approaching the SHO.
Case Title: Brinda Karat Vs State of NCT Delhi
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