Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (File)
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on a plea challenging the Allahabad High Court’s decision to accept the state’s refusal to grant sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a 2007 hate speech case.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud also issued notice to the Director General of Police (Crime Branch), Gorakhpur District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police. The court was hearing a petition filed by Gorakhpur resident Parvez Parvaz and Asad Hayat from Azamgarh.
Appearing for the state government, Senior Advocate Aman Lekhi accepted the notice. The reply will be filed in two weeks. The court will now hear the matter after six weeks.
A division bench of the high court had, on February 22, dismissed a plea seeking a CBI probe into the case. The court found no discrepancy in the probe already carried out.
The CJI-led bench agreed to hear the petition filed by Parvaz, on whose plea a magistrate court in Gorakhpur had, in 2008, ordered initiation of a criminal case against Adityanath for allegedly delivering a hate speech that led to riots in the district.
The petitioners had contended that the case should be handed over to an independent agency like the CBI, saying the state police’s CB-CID was “deliberately delaying and impeding investigation”.
The appeal pointed out that the home department was under the chief minister, and he could not be a “judge in his own cause”. The petitioners also claimed that they had given a written request to the investigating officer to procure details of a television programme in which Adityanath had reportedly admitted to the incident.
Rejecting the plea, the high court had said: “We do not find any procedural error, either in the conduct of the investigation or in the decision making process of refusal to grant sanction, or any other illegality in the order, which may require any interference by this court. Writ petition must fail and accordingly stands dismissed. However, in the facts and circumstances, we do not make any order as to costs.”
Last year, the state government had refused sanction to prosecute Adityanath and four other BJP leaders in the case, saying the video evidence (CD) sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in October 2014 was “tampered” with.
The incident dates back to January 2007 when clashes broke out during a Muharram procession in Gorakhpur. Adityanath, then the Gorakhpur MP, is reported to have delivered an objectionable speech after a Hindu youth, who was injured in the clashes, died.