The Delhi High Court  dismissed the petition moved by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat challenging a trial court order, which had rejected her plea seeking an FIR against Union Minister Anurag Thakur and BJP MP Parvesh Verma for allegedly delivering hate speeches concerning anti-CAA protests.

In the petition filed before the trial court, the CPI(M) leader sought a direction to the Parliament Street Police Station to register an FIR against Thakur and Verma for their alleged hate speeches in relation to the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at Shaheen Bagh in the national capital in 2020.

Karat had claimed in her complaint that “Thakur and Verma had sought to incite people as a result of which three incidents of firing took place at two different protest sites in Delhi.”

In her complaint, Karat had mentioned that at the Rithala rally, Thakur had on January 27, 2020, egged on the crowd to raise an incendiary slogan – “shoot the traitors” – after lashing out at anti-CAA protesters, while Verma had on January 28, 2020, allegedly made incendiary comments against the anti-CAA protesters in Shaheen Bagh.

However, the trial court said that the complaint was not sustainable without the prior sanction.

After this, Karat moved to the high court seeking to quash the trial court’s order and also a direction for expeditious disposal of applications under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) (power of a magistrate to direct the police to conduct an investigation in respect of a cognisable offence) and that technical objections and maintainability be decided at the threshold to avoid prejudice to the complainant and wastage of judicial time.