Two Hindu organisations, ‘Hindu Sena’ and Hindu Front for Justice, have moved the Supreme Court seeking to intervene as parties in a pending plea in which notices have been issued to the Centre and others on allegations of hate speeches made against Muslim communities at Haridwar and New Delhi.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, on January 12, had sought responses from the Centre, Utttarakhand and Delhi Police on the PIL filed by journalist Qurban Ali and former Patna High Court judge and senior advocate Anjana Prakash seeking direction to ensure investigation and action against those who allegedly made hate speeches during the two events held recently in Haridwar and the national capital.
One intervention application filed by Vishnu Gupta, National President of NGO ‘Hindu Sena’, through lawyer Barun Kumar Sinha, has sought directions to the State governments to register FIRs against AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi and others including Tauqeer Raza, Sajid Rashidi, Amanatullah Khan, Waris Pathan for allegedly making hate speeches against Hindu community and its God and Godesses.
Watch | What is ‘hate speech’?
“The applicants herein through the present application are praying to this court to direct an SIT to investigate the hate speeches given against the members of the Hindu community, their gods and goddesses,” Mr. Gupta said in the plea.
Referring to Article 25 (freedom of religion to all persons in India) of the Constitution, it said, “It is crystal clear that every citizen of this country has freedom of conscience, practice and propagation of religion. Therefore, the Holding Dharma Sansad by Hindu is protected by Article 19(a)(b) and Article 25 of the Constitution.” It referred to the religion of one of petitioners of the main PIL, Qurban Ali, and said he “belongs to Muslim Community” and the follower of Islam is not “supposed to raise objection against the affairs or activities related to Hindu Dharm Sansad. In fact by way of aforesaid petition, an effort is being made to scandalize the spiritual leaders of Hindus”.
Organizing ‘Dharm Sansad’ by Hindu spiritual leaders cannot be treated as against any other religion, it said.
The other organisation, Hindu Front for Justice, has field the intervention application through lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain and gave internet links of alleged hate speeches made by various Muslim leaders.
Earlier, the apex court while issuing notices on the PIL alleging hate speeches against Muslims had granted liberty to the petitioners, Anjana Prakash and Qurban Ali, to make a representation to the concerned local authorities regarding proposed future ‘Dharam Sansad’.
The plea, which specifically referred to the "hate speeches" delivered between the "17th and 19th of December 2021 at Haridwar and Delhi", had also sought compliance of apex court's guidelines to deal with such speeches.
One event was organised in Haridwar by Yati Narsinghanand and the other in Delhi by 'Hindu Yuva Vahini' allegedly "calling for genocide of members" of a community, it said.
The Uttarakhand Police had filed an FIR on December 23 last year under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code against some persons including Sant Dharamdas Maharaj, Sadhvi Annapoorna alias Pooja Shakun Pandey, Yati Narsinghanand and Sagar Sindhu Maharaj.
A similar complaint was filed with the Delhi Police for the second event organized in the national capital.
The plea said that no effective steps have been taken by Uttarakhand and Delhi police.
