Hate Speech : Supreme Court Refues To Entertain PIL Seeking Arrest Of Jitendra Tyagi & Yati Narasinghanand

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a PIL filed  for the arrest Of Syed Waseem Rizvi alias Jitendra Tyagi and Yati Narasinghanand in relation to Haridwar Dharam Sansad hate speech cases. The Court stated that a petition for criminal prosecution could not be filed under Article 32. The PIL was filed by Indian Muslim Shia Isna Ashari Jamaat.

The PIL, along with praying for the arrest of the respondents, had also prayed for a ban on the sale and publication of the book 'Muhammad' authored by Syed Waseem Rizvi (who later converted as Hindu and changed name as Jitendra Tyagi) and for the court to restrain the respondents from 'making incendiary and hurtful remarks against the religion of Islam.'

At the outset, the bench stated that a person could not be criminally prosecuted through a plea filed under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution. CJI Lalit, in this context, stated that such an action by the court would be against the principles laid down in the judgement of Lalita Kumari v. Govt. of U.P. For context, in this judgement, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) was mandatory under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, if the information disclosed commission of a cognizable offence.

The petitioner then drew the attention of the court to Prayer B of the petition, which stated that a direction could be passed to confiscate and forfeit copies of the book 'Muhammad' authored by Syed Waseem Rizvi. He stated that the Union could perhaps consider the same. To this, Justice Ravindra Bhat enquired if the petition had approached the Union for the same. When the petitioner answered in the negative, the bench expressed its intention to dismiss the petition. 

The petitioner then drew the attention of the court to Prayer E of the petition which stated that the court may direct the government to implement recommendations as given in the Report 267 published by the Law Commission of India. The said recommendations were made to curb hate speech in the country. To this, the CJI remarked that Law Commission's recommendations were recommendations at the end of the day and did not have the nature of a mandamus.

Accordingly, the petition was dismissed as withdrawn.

The grounds raised in the petition included that the actions of the respondents were against the secular character of the Indian constitution, that the book 'Muhammad' authored by Syed Waseem Rizvi was hurtful to the sentiments of the Muslim community and that it would result in rise of hate speech against the Muslim community. The plea described Rizvi and Narsinghanand as a 'threat to the security and integrity, the social harmony and public peace and to the law-and-order situation' and therefore sought their arrest as a preventive measure.

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