'Goli maaro saalon ko' speech: Supreme Court dismisses review plea against clean chit to Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma

The Supreme Court has dismissed CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat's review petition challenging its April 29 judgment that held no cognisable offence was made out against BJP leaders Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma over speeches made during the 2020 Delhi Assembly election campaigns.

The review petition was dismissed in chambers, with the Court finding no ground to revisit its earlier decision.

A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta had earlier rejected Karat's application seeking an open court hearing of the review petition. On July 29, it dismissed the review petition itself as well.

"We have gone through the review petition as well as the grounds in support thereof. We do not find any error, much less apparent, in the order impugned, warranting its reconsideration," the Bench said.

The matter concerned speeches delivered during the politically charged period of the Delhi Assembly elections in January 2020, when protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) were underway, including demonstrations at Shaheen Bagh.

CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat sought the registration of criminal cases against Thakur and Verma for allegedly making inflammatory remarks.

She said that the first incident occurred on January 27, 2020, when Anurag Thakur - then Union Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs - addressed an election rally in Rithala. During the rally, he led a call-and-response slogan that included the words:

“Desh ke gaddaron ko… goli maaro saalon ko.”

The second incident related to remarks made on January 28, 2020 by Parvesh Verma, then Member of Parliament from West Delhi and now the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi.

In campaign statements and interviews, Verma warned that protesters at Shaheen Bagh would eventually "enter houses and rape and kill people", if not stopped.

Karat first approached the Delhi police, seeking that they registered a criminal case against Thakur and Verma for the offences of promoting enmity between groups and outraging religious sentiments under Sections 153A and 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), among other provisions.

After the police refused to register a criminal case, Karat approached a trial court seeking directions to order the police to register a first information report (FIR) against Thakur and Verma.

The trial court rejected Karat's plea. It held that prior sanction under Sections 196 and 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was required before initiating prosecution against public officials.

The Delhi High Court affirmed this view in 2022, prompting Karat to approach the Supreme Court.

On April 29 this year, the Supreme Court refused to order the registration of any FIR.

It partly allowed Karat's plea by holding that prior sanction is not required at the pre-cognisance stage for a Magistrate to order investigation into the offences alleged against Thakur and Verma.

However, after independently examining Thakur's and Verma's speeches, the Supreme Court concluded that no cognisable offence was disclosed.

Karat then filed a review plea questioning the correctness of the April 29 verdict, which has now been dismissed by the top court.

[Read Order]