Staff Reporter
Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court on Thursday issued a notice to Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma after hearing a batch of petitions which sought directions to restrain him from making alleged ‘hate speeches’ targeting the ‘Miyan’ community. ‘Miyan’ is a pejorative term used in reference to Bangladeshi Muslims in Assam.
After the hearing, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury ordered that notices should be issued to the CM, as well as other respondents.
The court, however, refused to pass an ad interim order immediately restraining Sarma from making such statements. “I think you would agree that without a notice and without the person being represented, that won’t be appropriate. We shall see,” the Chief Justice said.
The court said that issuing a notice to the ruling BJP, which recently released a controversial AI-generated video on its official social media handle, was not necessary. The video, deleted in the wake of the controversy, showed the CM taking aim with a rifle and firing at an animated image of two men wearing skullcaps.
The PIL filed by Assamese scholar Dr Hiren Gohain and two others sought directions to restrain the CM from making alleged hate speeches against minority communities and inciting civilians to take the law into their hands. The Supreme Court recently refused to entertain petitions seeking action against CM Dr Sarma. The top court had asked the petitioners to instead approach the Gauhati High Court with their grievances. It had also directed the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court to expedite the hearing on the matter.
During the hearing in the Gauhati High Court on Thursday, the petitioners’ counsels, including Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Chander Uday Singh, submitted that CM Dr Sarma made provocative and threatening statements against the ‘Miyans’. They had also referred to the video in question.
Singhvi argued that the CM’s repeated statements demonstrated a consistent pattern of “incitement” and that they did not align with his responsibilities as the head of the state.
During the hearing, senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the petitioner in a connected matter, said, “As a CM of the state, who occupies the seat of power, he can’t make statements that create a law-and-order situation. He said in one of his statements that ‘Miyan’ people are to be blamed for the inflated prices of vegetables in the state. There is a consistent pattern in his speeches that shows he is denigrating a particular community.”
Arora sought an order on the lines of an SC order, saying, “We feel that this court is charged with the duty to protect the fundamental rights, constitutional values and the secular democratic character of the country, especially the rule of law.” She added, “Having made that statement on the legal position, the matter needs some form of interim direction.”
The court observed that the statements cited by the petitioners at some point appeared to show a “fissiparous tendency” but said it would examine all submissions before reaching a conclusion. A ‘fissiparous tendency’ refers to the inclination of a large group, organization, or nation to break apart, divide, or fragment into smaller, independent, and often conflicting factions.
Notices were issued to the respondents, and their representatives accepted them. The notices were made returnable within two weeks but later extended to five weeks.
The next hearing will take place after Bihu, on April 21.
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