New Delhi, Aug 24 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its decision on a plea against the Allahabad High Court judgment in an instance of the alleged hatred speech of 2007 involving the current Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.Senior attorney Mukul Rohatgi, on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government, submitted before a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana that nothing remains in the case, and the CD was sent to CFSL and they found that it had been altered with.In pointing out that the issue raised in the petition was already being examined by the court of appeals, he added: “You can’t continue beating dead horses after 15 years, just because the person who is CM is CM in the present.”
In February 2018 the high court stated that it could not discover any error in procedure in the decision-making procedure of the refusal to issue sanction to prosecute.The petitioners Parvez Parwaz and others had filed a petition to the top court challenging the high court’s decision.
The bench, comprised of Justices Hima Kohli and C.T.Ravikumar and C.T.Ravikumar, informed the petitioners attorney that, if there were no criminal charges, then what is the issue of sanction.
Advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi who was representing the petitioners, mentioned the one of the issues raised in the court’s decision.The order is: “Whether the state can make an order in accordance with section 196 of the CrPC in regard of the proposed defendant in an investigation into a crime that in the meantime is elected as Chief Minister and becomes the executive head according to the rules laid out in Article 163 of the Constitution.”
Ayyubi claimed that the high court did not decide on the issue, and added that because of the refusal of the sanction of prosecuting, a closing report was filed.
The court told counsel for the petitioners that sanction would only be granted when there is an instance, and if there’s no case then what is the issue of sanction.
Rohatgi stated that in 2008 the petitioner presented an audio CD that was damaged, and after five years, he presented a new CD which claimed to have recorded the hate speech.However, it was discovered to have been tampered with, he said.
A case was filed at the police station in Gorakhpur against Yogi Adityanath who was then an MP, as well as several others, on the alleged charge of encouraging hatred between two different groups.
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