Supreme Court Tells Petitioner To Give Details Of Specific Hate Speech Instances

The Supreme Court on Monday asked a petitioner, who has raised the issue of hate speeches, to give details of particular instances, including about the steps undertaken during the course of the investigation.

"This kind of a petition, though as a citizen, perhaps you may be right in saying that the entire atmosphere is getting sullied as a result of these hate speeches and perhaps you have every justifiable ground to say that this needs to be curbed," a bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justice S R Bhat observed.

It, however, said for a court to take cognisance of a matter, there must be a factual background.

The court observed that the petitioner may concentrate on one or two instances.

"This is too random a petition, saying there are 58 instances where someone made a hate speech," the bench said.

"We do not even know what are the details of the particular crime, what is the status, what is the stage, who are the persons involved, whether any crimes are registered or not registered," it added.

The bench granted time to the petitioner, H Mansukhani, to submit an additional affidavit, concentrating on certain incidents and giving details of the crime in question, including about the steps undertaken during the course of the investigation, if any.

It said the affidavit be filed by October 31 and posted the matter on November 1.

During the hearing, the petitioner raised the issue of hate crime and hate speeches to target minority communities.

She also alleged that hate speeches are a "profitable business" these days.

The petitioner, who referred to the Bollywood film, "The Kashmir Files", during the arguments, said a hate speech is like an arrow that never turns back.

The bench observed that these are matters where the normal proceedings in a crime-related issue must be undertaken.

It said the petitioner may concentrate on immediate instances and give details as to whether the crimes were registered and who are supposed to be the culprits.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)