Supreme Court continues stay of hate case proceedings against BJP leader Annamalai

A Bench adjourned the case to September

April 29, 2024 02:54 pm | Updated 03:21 pm IST - NEW DELHI

BJP Tamil Nadu president K. Annamalai File

BJP Tamil Nadu president K. Annamalai File | Photo Credit: Siva Saravanan S

The Supreme Court on April 29 continued its February order of stay of criminal proceedings against Tamil Nadu BJP state president K. Annamalai in a hate speech case instituted for his remark that a Christian missionary NGO was behind a petition filed in the apex court seeking a ban on the bursting of firecrackers during Deepavali.

A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna adjourned the case to September, after the Lok Sabha polls.

The adjournment came on a request from Salem-based activist V. Piyush who had filed the complaint against Mr. Annamalai.

The BJP leader had approached the apex court after the Madras High Court refused to quash the criminal trial pending against him before a Magistrate court in Salem.

The complaint accused Mr. Annamalai of resorting to hate speech with his comment that “a Christian missionary had filed a writ before the Supreme Court against bursting of crackers during Diwali” in an interview in October 2022.

The Magistrate had taken cognisance of Mr. Piyush’s complaint even though the Cyber Cell of the Tamil Nadu Police had rejected the accusation that the statement amounted to hate speech. The petition said the Magistrate had issued a summons to Mr. Annamalai without even bothering to conduct an enquiry or even watch the video recording of the interview.

Mr. Annamalai had argued that the High Court refused to quash the case despite its earlier observations that there was no “primary facie case” against him.

The BJP leader raised how a “parallel was drawn to Hitler, the genocide of Jews, etc, and that the said speech is a ticking time bomb which will burst any time”.

He noted that there was no adverse reaction or outburst of violence from the public after the video interview.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.