SC issues notice to UP in hate speech case against Yogi
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Uttar Pradesh government to explain in four weeks why chief minister Yogi Adityanath should not be prosecuted for an alleged hate speech he gave in 2007 in Gorakhpur.
The court issued a notice to the state government while hearing a petition challenging the Allahabad High Court’s decision upholding the state’s decision to refuse permission for prosecuting the chief minister.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud
THE PETITIONER HAS CHALLENGED HC ORDER WHICH HAD UPHELD THE UP GOVT’S REFUSAL TO GRANT SANCTION TO PROSECUTE THE CM
issued notice to the state government and the district magistrate of Gorakhpur and posted the matter after four weeks for hearing.
Petitioner Rasheed Khan has challenged the high court order which had upheld the Uttar Pradesh government’s refusal to grant sanction to prosecute the CM.
A state government spokesperson said: “We will respond to the court directions when we receive a copy of it. We will have to study it before making any comment on it.”
Earlier this year, the Allahabad high court had upheld a sessions court order which had quashed a magistrate’s order taking cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the police in 2009.
The high court had said that sessions court was right in holding that there was no prosecution sanction to initiate trial against the chief minister and others.
In January 2017, the sessions court in Gorakhpur had quashed the magistrate court’s cognisance order.
The sessions court had said that there was no sanction to prosecute the accused, including Adityanath and others.
The Uttar Pradesh government had in May 2017 refused to grant the mandatory sanction for the prosecution of the Chief Minister.
Several incidents of violence were reported in Gorakhpur on January 27, 2007, after the alleged hate speech of Adityanath.
Adityanath was an MP from Gorakhpur when he allegedly gave a speech outside the town’s railway station that in a police complaint was seen as inflammatory and inciting communal violence.