Everything that is said is not hate speech; problem is law does not define hate speech: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Monday said that there is no concrete definition of hate speech under Indian law and criminal justice system has to fall back on Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) whenever such offending speeches are made [Shaheen Abdullah vs Union of India and ors]. .Section 153A penalises acts of promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language. "It is not everything that is said is hate speech or invites 153. We have to bear that in mind also. The concern is hate speech is not defined, [so] we have to fall back on 153A," the Court said.A bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna, however, made it clear that not every utterance against someone can be termed hate speech and there has to be some vilification involved for it to be so categorised.In this context, the Court drew the attention of the parties to its recent order by which it had stayed criminal proceedings against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for a speech he had delivered in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. "Two days ago we stayed proceedings against Mr Arvind Kejriwal. It is not everything that is said is hate speech or invites 153. We have to bear that in mind also," the Court said..The Supreme Court was hearing a batch of pleas seeking that steps be taken against hate speech incidents.The Court was specifically dealing with a plea regarding Hindu Janakrosh Morcha held in Mumbai on February 5.During the hearing of the matter on February 3, the Court had said that the morcha could permitted only subject to the condition that no hate speech will be made at the event.It had also ordered that the event be videographed..When the matter was taken up on Monday, the bench enquired as to what transpired at the event. Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Maharashtra government, contended that nothing untoward had taken place. The counsel for the petitioners, advocate Nizam Pasha, said that there were instances of hate speech at smaller events associated with the said rally. Pasha added that he was awaiting speech transcripts of the event, and the bench said that it would like to examine the video of the rally.The SG then said that only interlocutory applications in the matter have been listed for hearing. To this Justice Joseph replied,"We do not mind hearing applications, those are not our enemy. Our common enemy is hate speech." The matter will be heard next on March 21..In October last year, the Court while hearing the matter, had ordered the Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Police to take suo motu action in cases of hate speech without looking at the religion of the offenders, or risk inviting contempt.Last month, the Court had said that television channels in India are creating divisions in the society, and suggested stringent measures on news anchors who promote or indulge in hate speech.