Delhi High Court (File Photo | Shekhar Yadav, EPS)
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed the plea filed by CPM leader Brinda Karat and politician KM Tiwari against a trial court order rejecting their plea for registration of FIRs against BJP leaders Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma for allegedly delivering hate speeches in the year 2020.
A bench of Justice Chandra Dhari Singh dismissed the criminal writ petition after observing that for prosecuting the two men for certain alleged offences mentioned in the complaint, a prior sanction of the Central government is required according to Section 196 Code of Criminal Procedure (Prosecution for offences against the State and for criminal conspiracy to commit such offence.)
The petition was filed against an August 2020 trial court order which had dismissed a complaint seeking registration of an FIR against Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports and Minister of I&B Anurag Thakur and MP Parvesh Verma for their alleged hate speeches in 2020.
In his order, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vishal Pahuja had stated that the complainants hadn’t obtained previous sanction from the “competent authority” in order to prosecute the BJP leaders.
The petitioners had alleged in their complaint before the trial court that “Thakur and Verma had sought to incite people as a result of which three incidents of firing took place at two different anti-CAA protest sites in Delhi”. At a rally in January, 2020, Thakur egged on the crowd to raise an incendiary slogan — “shoot the traitors”.
J&K Pandits example of displacement after hate speeches: HC
New Delhi: Hate speeches are the beginning point of attacks against a targeted community and there have even been instances of demographic shifts in the aftermath of inflammatory speeches — the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley being a prime example, the Delhi High Court on Monday said. Justice Chandra Dhari Singh said that the methodology of hate speeches is not restricted to any religion or community and there are instances of hate speeches in different parts of the country targeted against people of specific communities based upon demography. The judge asserted that hate speeches are targeted at a community to create a psychological impact on their psyche and the attacks can range from discrimination to ostracism, ghettoization, deportation, and even genocide.
