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SC stays further coercive action against man facing multiple FIRs for social media posts

Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu appearing for Khan said the FIRs were registered in retaliation to the complaint he had made against Panoli.

The bench said that the alleged social media posts were “all hate mongering” and would not fall within the ambit of free speech.

“Hate speech will not take us anywhere,” the Supreme Court said Monday as it stayed further arrest of Wazahat Khan, accused of allegedly hurting religious sentiments through his social media posts and on whose complaint West Bengal police arrested law student Sharmishta Panoli on similar charges.

Issuing notice on his plea seeking consolidation of FIRs registered against Khan in Assam, Maharashtra, Delhi and Haryana over his social media posts, a bench of Justices K V Viswanathan and N K Singh directed against any coercive action in the other FIRs or any other FIR that may be registered in future over the same allegations. The bench noted that Khan was undergoing police custody in an FIR registered at the Golf Link police station in Kolkata, and was also remanded to judicial custody in another FIR lodged in Bengal.

During the hearing, Justice Viswanathan remarked orally “these hate speeches get us nowhere”. Citing a Tamil saying, he added “…a wound inflicted by fire may heal, but one inflicted by tongue will not”.

Justice Viswanathan said, “I have been thinking, someday we will get into it…incitement to violence is a test for the speech — should it be physical violence? Need not be. It can also be verbal.”

Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu appearing for Khan said the FIRs were registered in retaliation to the complaint he had made against Panoli.

The bench asked why he had not attached the allegedly offensive tweets. Naidu said he had deleted those tweets and apologised before the FIRs were lodged.

Apparently conveying his disapproval of the social media posts by Khan, Naidu said he is “reaping what he has sown” but had “learnt the lesson the hard way”. He said he was only praying to consolidate the different FIRs so that trial can happen in one place.

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The bench said that the alleged social media posts were “all hate mongering” and would not fall within the ambit of free speech.

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