Why can’t Yogi Adityanath be prosecuted for hate speech, Supreme Court asks UP govt

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Uttar Pradesh government to explain in four weeks why Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath should not be prosecuted for an alleged hate speech he gave in Gorakhpur in 2007. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud issued notice to the state government and the district magistrate of Gorakhpur on a petition challenging the Allahabad high court’s order dismissing a plea to for the prosecution of the chief minister, who was then the Gorakhpur MP. It posted the next hearing after four weeks. Petitioner Rasheed Khan has challenged the high court decision earlier this year to uphold the Gorakhpur sessions court’s 2017 verdict quashing a magistrate’s order taking cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the police in 2009 as there was no prosecution sanction to initiate trial against the chief minister and others in the case. The Uttar Pradesh government had in May 2017 refused to grant the mandatory sanction for the prosecution of the chief minister. In January 2007, Adityanath allegedly gave a speech outside the Gorakhpur railway station that in a police complaint was seen as inflammatory and inciting communal violence. Several incidents of violence were reported in the eastern Uttar Pradesh town following the speech. Source: Hindustan Times