Hate speeches sullying the country's atmosphere: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court declared on Monday that hate speech is sullying the nation's atmosphere and must be prevented, reported Bar and Bench. The statement was delivered by a bench composed of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit during the hearing of a complaint that claimed no action was being taken by the government against such comments.

"You are correct that the entire atmosphere is getting sullied by these hate speeches and that it needs to be stopped," the bench remarked.

The petitioner, one Harpreet Mansukhani, appeared in person and said hate speeches are being given stating India will be made a 'Hindu Rashtra' by 2024.

As per the petitioner, hate speech has been turned into a profitable business and alleged that a political party funded the movie 'Kashmir Files'.

The petitioner also claimed that he had used senior BJP officials' confessions to support his claims that minorities had been killed.

"Retired Army chief, presidents etc wrote to the PM saying this but there was no response. Regarding such an earlier case, Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli also sought a status report regarding implementation of the Tehseen Poonawalla judgment," Mansukhani submitted.

At first, the bench stated that such situations require the standard criminal law proceedings. However, the petitioner insisted that there should be guidelines to stop such conspiracies from giving rise to such hate speech.

"Normal criminal proceedings have to be undertaken in these cases. We have to see who is involved and who is not," CJI Lalit remarked.

"Every time a hate speech is given it is like an arrow which never returns," he contended.

"For a court to take cognizance of this, we need factual background. We need some samples of cases. Otherwise, it is a random petition," the CJI said.

The petitioner then stated that he will submit an affidavit detailing examples of hate speech and stating whether or not crimes had been committed. The case was adjourned till November 1 by the court's decision.