The Supreme Court stayed criminal proceedings against Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party State president K. Annamalai on Monday in a complaint accusing him of hate speech for his remark that a Christian missionary NGO was behind a petition filed in the top court seeking a ban on the bursting of firecrackers during Deepavali.
A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna passed the interim order while issuing formal notice to Salem-based activist V. Piyush who had filed the complaint against Mr. Annamalai, represented by senior advocate Siddharth Luthra and M.A. Chinnasamy.
The BJP leader had approached the top court after the Madras High Court refused to quash the criminal trial pending against him before a Magistrate court in Salem.
The complaint accused Mr. Annamalai of resorting to hate speech with his comment that “a Christian missionary had filed writ before the Supreme Court against bursting of crackers during Diwali” in an interview in October 2022.
The Magistrate had taken cognisance of Mr. Piyush’s complaint even though the Cyber Cell of the Tamil Nadu Police had rejected the accusation that the statement amounted to hate speech. The petition said the Magistrate had issued summons to Mr. Annamalai without even bothering to conduct an enquiry or even watch the video recording of the interview.
Mr. Annamalai argued that the High Court had refused to quash the case despite its earlier observations that there was no “primary facie case” against him.
The BJP leader raised how a “parallel was drawn to Hitler, genocide of Jews, etc, and that the said speech is a ticking time bomb which will burst any time”.
He noted that there was no adverse reaction or outburst of violence from the public after the video interview.
“There was no public disorder or outburst of violence based on the statements… The High Court failed to consider that the words were uttered more in grievance than as a hate speech. Since there were no reactions, the same has to be considered and it will not attract the provisions under Sections 153A (promoting enmity) and 505 (1)(b) (statements made against public tranquillity) of the Indian Penal Code,” the petition noted.
The court listed the case on April 29, 2024.
