SC issues notice to UP govt in case seeking prosecution of CM
21 Aug 2018
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The decision of the Allahabad High Court to accept the Uttar Pradesh government’s refusal to grant sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for an alleged hate speech has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
The apex court issued a notice to the UP government, which has agreed to file a reply in two weeks. The matter will be heard after six weeks by the court.
Parvez Parvaz and Asad Hayat, two residents of the state, filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Allahabad High Court’s refusal to grant sanction to prosecute Adityanath.
The petitioners have urged that the investigation relating to the alleged hate speech delivered by Adityanath about 10 years ago – which led to riots – should be probed by the CBI as the local police was deliberately delaying and impeding investigations.
A district magistrate in Gorakhpur had in 2007 directed that Adityanath, who was a BJP leader from the state, should not visit the city, where communal violence had erupted. He had, however, defied the magistrate and had staged a non-violent dharna.
Later, violence broke out in Gorakhpur and trains, buses and other vehicles and religious places were attacked and burnt.
According to the petitioners, with Adityanath as the chief minister and also in-charge of the home department, he should not be allowed to decide on the probe into charges against him.
The Allahabad High Court had, however, had not found “any procedural error either in the conduct of the investigation or in the decision making process of refusal to grant sanction, or any other illegality in the order, which may require any interference by this court.”
