SC grants protection to AAP leader Sanjay
New Delhi, Feb. 9: The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted protection from arrest to Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh in connection with the first information reports filed against him in Uttar Pradesh for alleged hate speech, Live Law reported.
The cases against Singh are related to a remark that he made at a press conference in Lucknow in August last year. He had accused the Uttar Pradesh government of favouring a certain caste over the others.
Multiple FIRs were filed against the Singh in Uttar Pradesh, which he alleged was an attempt harass him. He approached the Supreme Court seeking the quashing of the FIRs and a non-bailable warrant issued against him.
Though the bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan granted relief to Singh, it noted that he cannot divide the society on lines of castes and religion, PTI reported.
Mr Singh’s lawyers Vivek Tankha and Sumeer Sodhi told the Supreme Court that the police did not follow procedures while filing cases against him. They added that a sanction to prosecute Singh had to be sought from the Rajya
Sabha chairperson, since he was a member of the House. However, the court noted that this does not mean no offence can be made out against Singh.
The Supreme Court said that the UP government could approach the Rajya Sabha chairperson to seek sanction to prosecute Singh. It also issued a notice to the state government on Singh’s petitions to club the FIRs filed against him. The case will now be heard in March.
Former vice-president Mr Hamid Ansari on Tuesday said that a new version of nationalism that places cultural commitments at its centre and promotes intolerance and arrogant patriotism has taken over the political and cultural landscape. Terming this as “hyper-nationalism” and “strident nationalism”, Mr Ansari said one of the outcomes of this “hyper-nationalism” is “a subversion of core values” of Indian democracy.
In an interview to journalist Karan Thapar for the news portal The Wire, Mr Ansari said “hypernationalism” and “strident nationalism” threaten dissent and are making the country insecure about its place in the world. According to him this means commitment to the principles and core values of Indian Constitution is weakening and diminishing and this mindset is also making India intolerant, arrogant and insecure.
The former vice-president, who has also served as a diplomat, felt that a worrying consequence of this cultural hyper-nationalism is that it has made “the fault lines in the society more visible” and
made India “more fragile”.
“The term secularism itself has almost disappeared from the government’s official vocabulary. In its place the politico-ideological effort now is to superimpose the primacy of a religious majority,” he said while adding this is pushing India from being a secular nation to becoming a Hindu country.
“Another consequence of this cultural hyper-nationalism is that our commitment to the Rule of Law seems to be under serious threat. We have lapsed into arbitrary decisionmaking and even mob rule,” he further said while adding that a “noticeable decline in the efficacy of the institutions of state” has occurred.
The interview was in connection to recently released autobiography — By Many A Happy Accident: Recollections of a Life.’
In his interview Mr. Ansari said the process leading towards this hyper-nationalism or strident nationalism began with the 2014 general election results but reached its fulfilment with the 2019 results and was a real turning point for India. “The 2019 results represent the success of populism … assisted by authoritarianism, nationalism and majoritarianism,” he said.
Talking about the superior judiciary, Mr. Ansari said: “The approach of the superior judiciary … does little credit to an iconic institution and damages public confidence”.