New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that police not registering FIRs suo motu in hate speech cases cannot automatically be treated as contempt of court.
A bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta said that contempt proceedings cannot be initiated merely because police did not independently register an FIR, especially when no complaint or supporting material was first placed before the authorities.
The Court delivered the ruling while disposing of contempt petitions in the hate speech matter of Ashwini Kumar Upadhyaya v. Union of India, in which stricter enforcement against hate speech incidents had earlier been sought.
The petitioners argued that based on the Supreme Court’s 2022 and 2023 directions, police were duty-bound to register FIRs on their own in hate speech cases. According to them, failure to do so amounted to deliberate disobedience of the Court’s orders.
However, the bench rejected the argument and termed it “overly broad and untenable.” The Court clarified that its previous orders were intended to ensure that police discharge their legal duties responsibly and act promptly in appropriate cases, but they did not make automatic registration of FIRs mandatory in every situation.
The judges observed that contempt jurisdiction can be invoked only when authorities are aware of a cognizable offence and still deliberately refuse to act. If no complaint, information, or evidence was first submitted before the police, it cannot be presumed that authorities intentionally violated court directions.
The Court further stated that existing laws dealing with hate speech are adequate and there is no legislative vacuum requiring fresh judicial directions or new legal provisions. It added that any future amendments or policy decisions in this regard fall within the domain of Parliament and the government.
With these observations, the Supreme Court dismissed both contempt petitions and held that non-registration of a suo motu FIR, by itself, does not amount to contempt of court.