The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain petitions seeking that a first information report be filed against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for hate speech against Muslims, Bar and Bench reported.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant told the petitioners to approach the Gauhati High Court. It asked the High Court to hear the matter on priority.
The Supreme Court declined a request to move the matter to another High Court, warning against “convenience forum shopping”, Bar and Bench reported.
The bench said that High Courts are constitutional entities meant to ensure access to justice. “Please do not undermine the sanctity of constitutional High Courts,” the legal news outlet quoted Kant as saying.
Petitions seeking action against the Bharatiya Janata Party leader were filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja. The petitioners pointed to several instances of hate speech by Sarma, and to a now-deleted social media post by the BJP’s Assam unit, containing a video depicting Sarma symbolically firing at images of two Muslim men at point-blank range.
In the past month, Sarma has made a series of remarks targeting Bengali-origin Muslims in Assam, calling them “Miyas”. The Assam chief minister had said that it was his job to “make them suffer”.
In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.
Once a pejorative in Assam, from the common use of the honorific “Miya” among South Asian Muslims, the term has now been reappropriated by the community as a self-descriptor to refer to Muslims who migrated to Assam from Bengal during the colonial era.
Petitions before SC
The CPI(M) and Raja, in their petitions, had sought the setting up of a Special Investigation Team by the Supreme Court, arguing that state and central agencies cannot be expected to conduct an independent and impartial inquiry.
They placed on record statements made by the chief minister between 2021 and February 2026 that allegedly call for the social, economic and civic exclusion of Bengali-origin Muslims, including calls to restrict access to livelihoods, transport, land and voting rights.
The petitioners contended that the remarks have had real-world consequences, with reports of discrimination and harassment allegedly being justified by perpetrators as acting on the chief minister’s directions.
The CPI(M) and Raja also added that the remarks violate the oath taken by the chief minister to uphold the Constitution, sovereignty, integrity, fraternity and equality.
Also read:
- Himanta Sarma’s remarks about ‘Miyas’ make a mockery of the Constitution
- Himanta Sarma’s remarks about ‘Miyas’ prejudicial and ‘alarmingly hateful’, say activists, lawyers
- Assam CM’s remarks violate Constitution, urge Supreme Court, president to intervene: Ex-bureaucrats
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