The top court on Tuesday, 3 January, held that additional restrictions cannot be imposed on the right to free speech of ministers, MPs and MLAs.
What additional restrictions? Those not found in Article 19 (2) -- which details out reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression.
The 5-judge bench (Justices S. Abdul Nazeer, B.R. Gavai, A.S. Bopanna, V. Ramasubramanian and B.V. Nagarathna) said that the grounds mentioned in Article 19 (2) are exhaustive already.
The Case: After the 2016 Bulandshahar gang rape incident, Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan had dismissed the incident as 'political conspiracy and nothing else.'
The survivors filed a petition before the top court seeking action against Khan.
Justice BV Nagarathna disagreed again: Although the conclusion arrived at by the bench was the same, they differed on finer details.
> Four out of the five judges added that even if statements made by a Minister are traceable to affairs of the state cannot be attributed vicariously to the government
> However, Justice BV Nagarathna said that in case a Minister makes statements in his "official capacity," then such statements can be attributed to the government
It is worth noting here, that she had given a dissenting opinion only a day ago on 2 January in the demonetisation case.
She clarified: If the statements of the Ministers are stray remarks and are not consistent with the stand of the government then they will be treated as a personal remark.
Hate speech? In her dissenting judgment, Justice Nagarathna also expressed concern over the rising cases of hate speech.
"Hate speech strikes at the foundational values of the Constitution by marking out a society as being unequal," she said.
She, however, refused to issue guidelines to curb statements made by public functionaries.
"It is for the party to control the speeches made by their ministers which can be done by forming a code of conduct. Any citizen who feels attacked by such speeches made or hate speech by public functionary etc. can approach court for civil remedies," she added.
More about the case:
After the survivors petitioned the apex court, the court sought an unconditional apology from Khan.
While doing so, the court noted that the case brings up larger questions about the state's obligation regarding freedom of speech and expression
The case was then referred to a Constitution bench in 2017.
The bench reserved its judgment on 15 November 2022.
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