The Supreme Court today stayed criminal proceedings against Tamil Nadu BJP President K. Annamalai in a hate speech case against him for his remarks on Christian missionaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta stated that K Annamalai\u2019s remarks do not constitute the offence under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. The bench listed the matter for the week commencing April 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Madras High Court had earlier refused to quash the criminal proceedings lodged against Annamalai, leading to the appeal before the apex court. Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai, in a YouTube interview, had claimed that it was a Christian missionary NGO that had filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking ban on bursting of firecrackers during Diwali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The High Court bench of Justice N Anand Venkatesh dismissed the quashing petition filed by Annamalai and directed a judicial magistrate in Salem to proceed with the matter without being influenced by the High Court\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Venkatesh remarked that the case against Annamalai should serve as a reminder to those in positions of power and influence to exercise caution for their words and deeds as it has a wider reach and impact on the citizens of this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Madras High Court asserted that the Tamil Nadu BJP chief had knowingly and conveniently used a petition filed before the Supreme Court on environmental issues as a vehicle to stoke communal tension. The bench further reasoned that it was time to look at what constituted hate speech differently, given the advent and reach of social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the complaint, filed by a social activist before the Salem magistrate court in 2022, K Annamalai had given an interview to a YouTube channel on October 22, 2022, where he had deliberately fanned communal hatred against Christians by lying that it was a missionary NGO that had filed the first case before the Supreme Court for a ban on Diwali crackers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Subsequently, the Salem court had taken cognisance and issued summons to Annamalai following which he approached the High Court with the quashing petition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court today stayed criminal proceedings against Tamil Nadu BJP President K. Annamalai in a hate speech case against him for his remarks on Christian missionaries. The bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta stated that K Annamalai\u2019s remarks do not constitute the offence under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[246,64],"tags":[84,130773,20232,1290,93676],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/IL\/uploads\/2024\/02\/26170839\/annamalai-chennai.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}