New Delhi
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.
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. In May this year, he was acquitted in another 2019 hate speech case for which he was convicted in October.
