On Hate Speech, Supreme Court Wants Details On Action From All States, UTs

The Supreme Court Thursday asked the Secretary of the Union Home Ministry to collate information from states and Union Territories (UTs) on compliance of its directions on measures to curb situations like mob violence and hate speech.

A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar referred to some judgments of 2018 which detail the structure and follow-up actions to be taken. "It is not adversarial," the bench, also comprising Justices AS Oka and JB Pardiwala, orally said.

"The Secretary, Home Department, may collate necessary information by corresponding directly with the Secretary, Home Department, of the respective states/UTs within three weeks and compile the information….," the bench said, adding the state-wise information be placed before it within six weeks, by the next hearing.

The bench said the respondents, including the Centre, states, and UTs as well as the Election Commission of India would file a response in the respective writ petitions within three weeks.

Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for the Centre, said they can collect the information. The counsel for the Election Commission told the bench that they have been impleaded as a party in one of the petitions, which has sought direction to the Centre to examine international laws and take effective and stringent steps to control hate speech and rumour-mongering in the country, The bench also told EC not to treat the matter as adversarial and asked the poll panel to step in.

On May 13, the court had permitted advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who is one of the petitioners in the matter, to implead the EC as a party.

As for the judgments that the court referred to, one was delivered in March 2018, in which the court asserted that illegal activities of 'khap panchayats' have to be stopped completely. Terming honour crimes as an assault on human dignity and the majesty of the law, the court had recommended that a law be brought to deal with offences which are "abhorrent to law", as it laid down preventive, remedial, and punitive measures to deal with these crimes.

In July 2018, the court delivered another verdict and asked the Parliament to consider enacting a new law to sternly deal with mob lynching and cow vigilantism. In October 2018, it delivered a judgement in which it had passed a slew of directions to prevent rising incidents of mob violence across the country.

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