The Supreme Court has continued the stay on the trial proceedings of a criminal case filed against K Annamalai, the Tamil Nadu BJP president. The case alleges he had given a hate speech against Christians in an interview with a YouTube channel on October 2022.
A bench headed by Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta has asked the complainant to file their reply within six weeks. The order has continued the interim stay given earlier; it has fixed the matter for reconsideration in the week commencing September 9.
The bench has observed that the complaint has a private status. It does not involve the state and only the complainant and the respondent are parties to the proceeding. Senior advocate Indira Jaisingh, who appeared on behalf of the complainant V Piyush, pointed out that the nature of the complaint was private and he demanded more time to file the counter-affidavit.
The Supreme Court had first stayed the proceedings of the criminal case against Annamalai on February 26. It found that from the transcript of the interview, there was no prima facie case of hate speech as no case had been made out.
It, however, passed a notice to the complainant who stated that Annamalai had delivered a hate speech against Christians during the October 22, 2022 interview, particularly about the practice of burting crackers before Diwali.
Annamalai has approached the Supreme Court against a Madras High Court order dated February 8 which refused to quash the summons served on him in the case. The high court had observed that it was necessary to keep in mind the psychological effect on individuals or groups within the definition of hate speech.
The summons had been issued by the trial court based on Piyush's complaint, and the high court based its findings on the fact that Annamalai's interview on a YouTube channel, posted on the BJP's platform, made divisive statements about an internationally funded Christian missionary NGO working against Hindu culture by filing cases in the Supreme Court to restrict the bursting of crackers.
The high court found that the statements of Annamalai prima facie showed a divisive intent to project the NGO as being against Hindu culture.
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