Blitz Bureau
HATE speeches will not take us anywhere “, remarked Supreme Court judge Justice KV Viswanathan on June 23, while dealing with the plea of Wajahat Khan (complainant in Sharmistha Panoli’s case), who is facing complaints/ FIRs in multiple states over alleged offensive remarks in his old social media posts.
A Bench of Justices Viswanathan and N Kotiswar Singh was considering Khan’s plea for consolidation of the FIRs lodged against him over alleged hurting of religious sentiments through the social media posts. Notably, the FIRs were lodged after Khan complained against influencer and law student Sharmistha Panoli, who was arrested and subsequently released on interim bail.
During the hearing, Justice Viswanathan came down strongly on the nature of Khan’s tweets, saying, “These tweets are all hate mongering. This cannot come under the freedom of speech and expression. Hate speeches will not take us anywhere.”
Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu (for Khan) submitted that his client had already deleted the tweets in question and had issued a public apology. He also argued that Khan was cooperating with the investigation and only sought consolidation of all criminal proceedings arising from the same set of tweets.
After hearing Naidu, the Supreme Court stayed Khan’s arrest in FIRs registered in states other than West Bengal.
