Supreme Court agrees to hear Dharam Sansad hate speech case

New Delhi, Jan 10: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of alleged hate speech delivered during 'Dharma Sansad' held in Haridwar.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing in the PIL, mentions the matter before a Bench headed by CJI NV Ramana that the slogan of the country seems to have changed from 'Satyameva Jayate' to 'Shasatrameva jayate'.

The BJP government in Uttarakhand is under tremendous pressure from different quarters for acting against those who delivered hate speeches against Muslims at the Dharma Sansad held in Haridwar from December 16-19.

An FIR has already been lodged against five people in the case, including Waseem Rizvi who changed his name to Jitendra Narayan Tyagi after converting to Hinduism last month, Sadhvi Annapurna, Dharamdas, a seer named Sindhu Sagar and organiser of the Sansad Yati Narasimhanand, the head priest of Dasna temple in Ghaziabad.

Retired police officers, including former DGPs of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, have written to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami describing the Sansad as a blot on Uttarakhand's long tradition of peaceful coexistence of different religions.

Muslims also took out marches in Dehradun and Haridwar on Friday and Saturday demanding immediate arrest of those who delivered the provocative speeches at the Sansad.