Supreme Court declines to review Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma hate speech complaint order

“We have gone through the review petition as well as the grounds in support thereof. We do not find any error, much less apparent, in the order impugned, warranting its reconsideration,” a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said in its July 29 order.

In its April 29 order, the bench said that after examining the material on record, including the alleged speeches, the February 26, 2020, status report submitted to the trial court, and the findings of the lower courts, it agreed that no cognisable offence was disclosed.

Pleas against Thakur, Verma

In their petition, Karat and Tiwari said that on January 27, 2020, Thakur made hate speech at a rally. They also alleged that a day later, Verma made inflammatory hate speeches while campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They also cited an interview in which Verma threatened the use of force to remove protesters at Shaheen Bagh.

The petitioners said they initially approached the Delhi Police commissioner and the Parliament Street station house officer (SHO) to register First Information Reports (FIRs) against the two leaders. When the police refused to register an FIR, they moved the Rouse Avenue court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (I).

According to the petitioners, their complaint was dismissed by the lower court on August 26, 2020, as not maintainable in law in the absence of prior sanction from the competent authority to prosecute the named accused.

Earlier orders

On June 13, 2022, the Delhi High Court rejected the pleas of Karat and Tiwari for registration of hate speech FIRs against Thakur and Verma, observing that “the statements were not directed against any specific community nor did they incite violence or public disorder”.

The Delhi High Court also said that in respect of offences within the ambit of Section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the power under Section 156(3) of CrPC to direct registration of an FIR and investigation could not be exercised in the absence of prior sanction.

CrPC Section 196 places a restriction on courts taking cognisance of certain offences unless the appropriate government grants prior sanction. Section 156(3) empowers a Judicial Magistrate to direct the police to register an FIR and investigate a cognisable offence if the police have failed to do so.

The Supreme Court, however, disagreed with the reasoning of the lower court and the Delhi High Court, and said the requirement of prior sanction arises only at the stage of the magistrate taking cognisance, not before.

“The position of law, as crystallised by this court, is unequivocal. Where information discloses the commission of a cognizable offence, registration of an FIR is mandatory. The police, in such circumstances, have no discretion in the matter, either under the statutory scheme or by way of interpretative latitude,” it said in its April order.

The court said that when authorities fail to perform their duties at the initial stage, they undermine the law’s purpose and leave ordinary citizens vulnerable to institutional inaction. It added that the rule of law requires investigative agencies to initiate the investigation in accordance with legal procedures, without being influenced by extraneous considerations.