The Calcutta High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed seeking a direction upon the private respondents to forbear from making speeches, which in the opinion of the petitioner is a hate speech, which hurts the religious sentiments of people and would cause damage to the fabric of the society.
On going through the writ petition, the Division Bench of Chief Justice T. S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya find that the petition is based upon certain newspaper reports and apart from annexing notice to the Chief Secretary by a solicitor firm on June 9, 2023, no research had been done by the writ petitioner.
The Bench observed that in any event, the reliefs sought for cannot be granted in public interest litigation and if, according to the petitioner, certain sentiments have been affected on account of certain speeches by certain individuals, law provides adequate remedy for redressal of such grievances.
Therefore, the Court was not inclined to entertain the petition. Accordingly the petition was dismissed by the High Court.
The PIL has been filed by one Nazia Elahi Khan.