New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea challenging the Allahabad High Court judgment over Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's inflammatory speech in 2007. Two months after he became CM in 2017, the state government informed the High Court that it is refusing sanction for prosecuting Adityanath and others booked in the case.
The High Court was approached by Parvez Parvaz and Asad Hayat challenging the government's refusal of sanction. The petition requested that the problem be handed over to an independent agency like the CBI. It also alleged that the state police's CB-CID was deliberately delaying and impeding the investigation.
In 2019, the High Court dismissed the plea saying it found no procedural error in the probe and the refusal of sanction. The bench stated that it found no illegality in the order which may require any interference by the court.
Parvaz approached the Supreme Court suggesting whether Yogi Adityanath, as the Chief Minister, could have participated in the process of granting sanction in a case that involved him. The SC bench has now upheld the HC's verdict on the matter.
The top court on Friday left open a legal question about the denial of sanction in the appropriate case, reported The Indian Express.
The inflammatory speech in question took place in 2007 in Gorakhpur when Yogi Adityanath was MP. Parvaz, a former journalist, alleged that the speech delivered by Adityanath seeking revenge for the death of a Hindu youth led to the clash between two groups during a Muharram procession on January 27, 2007. He filed the case on September 26, 2008.
In 2015, the police sought sanction for prosecution from the Samajwadi Party government. The state government led by BJP in May 2017 filed its affidavit which said the main evidence presented had been tampered with.
The Yogi Adityanath government argued that the Central Forensic Science Laboratory found that the submitted videos of the speech had been edited. The voice samples were not taken directly from Adityanath but other speeches delivered by him.
Parvaz is currently in jail serving life imprisonment in a 2018 gang rape case. A 40-year-old person accused him and another person of assaulting her.