New Delhi
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea filed by senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Mohd Azam Khan. The plea challenges a direction issued by an MP/MLA court in Rampur, which instructed Khan to provide his voice sample for the determination of a 2007 hate speech case. During the mention of the case, senior advocate Kapil Sibal informed the bench that the trial judge had denied an adjournment despite being informed about a pending special leave petition before the Supreme Court. Taking note of this, the bench directed the listing of the plea for further consideration on the following day. In his plea, Khan is contesting the order of the Allahabad High Court, which had declined to intervene with the decision of the lower court that required him to provide his voice sample. This sample is meant to establish whether the voice recorded in an audio cassette belongs to him or not. The hate speech case against Khan dates back to 2007 when he was accused of making derogatory and offensive remarks against a specific community. The MP/MLA court had taken note of the charge sheet and summoned Khan in connection with the case. Khan has been previously convicted in cases related to hate speech. He was sentenced to a two-year jail term for remarks against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in 2019. In another case, he was sentenced to three years in jail and subsequently disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. However, he was acquitted in yet another hate speech case in May of the same year.
