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Activists move Supreme Court over UP Dharam Sansad ads

Senior bureaucrats and activists on Monday urgently moved the Supreme Court seeking contempt action against the Ghaziabad district administration and the U.P. State police for allowing a Dharam Sansad of which advertisements sport communal remarks.

Appearing before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna for an urgent listing of the case, advocates Prashant Bhushan and Cheryl d’ Souza said the lapse on the part of the district administration and the State police amounted to a “wilful and deliberate contempt of the orders of the Supreme Court wherein it had directed all competent and appropriate authorities to take suo motu action against individuals or groups who indulge in communal activities and hate speeches”.

The petitioners include Aruna Roy, retired IAS Ashok Kumar Sharma, Deb Mukarji; former IFS officer Navrekha Sharma; former Member Planning Commission and National Commission for Women chief; social researcher and policy analyst Vijayan MJ.

“This is in view of the Dharam Sansad which is being organised between December 17 and December 21 at Ghaziabad by Yati Narasinghanand Foundation. The website and the advertisements for this sansad include several communal statements against the followers of Islam, inciting violence against Muslims,” the petitioners said.

During the mentioning, Bhushan said the sansad even calls for “genocide”. Chief Justice Khanna said the plea would be listed in due course, and there already were orders from the Supreme Court in this regard.

Similar pending petitions, filed by petitioners like former High Court judge Anjana Prakash and journalist Qurban Ali, had highlighted in the apex court that “hate speeches consisted of open calls for genocide of Muslims in order to achieve ethnic cleansing. The speeches are not mere hate speeches but amount to an open call for murder of an entire community. The speeches thus pose a grave threat not just to the unity and integrity of our country but also endanger the lives of millions of Muslim citizens”.

These petitions had brought to the court’s attention hate speeches and communal statements made during Dharam Sansad held in places like Haridwar and Delhi in December 2022.

“We are living in different times where slogans in the country have changed from Satyamev Jayate to Shashtramev Jayate,” senior advocate Kapil Sibal had submitted then.

In October 2022, the apex court had said it was “tragic what we have reduced religion to” in the 21st century and a “climate of hate prevails in the country” while directing police and authorities to suo motu register cases against hate speech offenders without waiting for someone to file formal complaints.

In the Tehseen Poonawala case of 2018, the apex court had condemned hate crimes and held that it was the “sacrosanct duty” of the state to protect the lives of its citizens. The Tehseen Poonawala judgment had seen the court issue a slew of guidelines for States and their police forces to prevent, control and deter hate speech, mob violence and lynchings.