'"Grave Threat": 76 Top Lawyers Write To Chief Justice On Genocide Call': Yet Another Test for the Supreme Court

[Sukla Sen]

Several anti-BJP political leaders and also eminent members of the civil society - including two former highest ranking military men, have gone on record demanding appropriate tangible actions by the state machinery.

So far, only token actions have followed as a consequence.

<<Seventy-six advocates of the Supreme Court have written to Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, asking the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the calls for "ethnic cleansing" at two recent religious events in Delhi and Haridwar. Naming a list of people who had given the call, the advocates wrote that in absence of police action, "Urgent judicial intervention is required to prevent such events that seem to have become the order of the day".

Pointing to the religious conclaves in Haridwar and Delhi, the letter -- signed by eminent lawyers including Dushyant Dave, Prashant Bhushan and Vrinda Grover, Salman Khurshid and former Patna High Court judge Anjana Prakash -- read: "The aforementioned events and the speeches delivered during the same are not mere hate speeches but amount to an open call for murder of an entire community".

The speeches, the letter said, pose a "grave threat not just to the unity and integrity of our country but also endanger the lives of millions of Muslim citizens".

...

"It may be noted that no effective steps have been taken under the provisions of 153, 153A, 153B, 295A, 504, 506, 120B, 34 of IPC in respect of the earlier hate speeches. Thus, urgent judicial intervention is required to prevent such events that seem to have become the order of the day," read the letter sent to Chief Justice Ramana. It also pointed out that several petitions have been filed on it and are pending with the court.   

"We are writing to your Lordship hoping for prompt action in your capacity as the head of the judicial wing of the State and knowing your Lordship's commitment to both the independence of Judiciary as also the constitutional values that are fundamental to the functioning of a multicultural nation such as ours," the advocates have appealed.>>

(Excerpted from: <https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/haridwar-dharma-sansad-76-top-lawyers-write-to-chief-justice-on-genocide-call-grave-threat-2672722>.)