Hate speech case: SC stays order of trial court directing Azam Khan to give voice sample
New Delhi, Aug 23: In an interim direction, the Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed operation of a direction passed by MP/MLA court in Rampur requiring senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Mohd Azam Khan to give his voice sample for determination of a 2007 hate speech case.
A bench of Justices A.S. Bopanna and Prashant Kumar Mishra issued notice on the special leave petition filed by Khan and ordered “an interim
stay on the directions issued by the trial court”, which were earlier upheld by the Allahabad High Court.
On Tuesday, the Apex Court agreed to urgently list the plea after it was apprised by senior advocate Kapil Sibal that the trial judge denied adjournment of the collection of voice sample due on August 23, despite being informed that a special leave petition is pending consideration before the
apex court.
In his petition, Khan has challenged the order passed by the Allahabad High Court which had refused to interfere with the decision of the lower court
requiring the SP leader to give his voice sample to establish if the voice recorded in the audio cassette containing hate speech belonged to him or
not.
Earlier, the trial court had also rejected his prayer for recall of the above order passed by it.
An FIR was lodged against the former legislator in 2007 at Tanda police station in Rampur for allegedly making derogatory and offensive speech
against a particular community, at the instance of an informant named Dheeraj Kumar Sheel.
Later, the MP/MLA court took cognizance upon the charge sheet submitted by the investigation agency in 2009 and simultaneously summoned Khan.
Recently, Khan was sentenced to a two-year jail term for his remarks made against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Khan was convicted in another case of hate speech in 2019 and sentenced to three years in jail by an MP-MLA magistrate court on October 17, 2022, which led to his disqualification from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly two days later.
In May this year, he was acquitted in another 2019 hate speech case for which he was convicted in October.
