SC to hear Azam Khan's plea against direction to give voice sample in hate speech case

New Delhi, August 22 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear on Wednesday a plea filed by senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Mohd Azam Khan against a direction passed by MP/MLA court in Rampur directing him to give his voice sample for determination of a 2007 hate speech case.

During the mentioning, a bench comprising Justices A.S. Bopanna and S.V.N. Bhatti, was apprised by senior advocate Kapil Sibal that the trial judge denied adjournment despite being told that a special leave petition is pending consideration before the apex court.

Taking note, the bench directed listing of the plea on Wednesday.

In his plea, Khan has challenged the order passed by the Allahabad High Court which had refused to interfere with the decision of the lower court requiring the SP leader to give his voice sample to prove if the voice recorded in the audio cassette belonged to him or not.

Earlier, the trial court had also rejected his prayer for recall of the above order passed by it.

An FIR was lodged against the former legislator in 2007 at theTanda police station in Rampur for allegedly making derogatory and offensive speech against a particular community, at the instance of an informant named Dheeraj Kumar Sheel.

The MP/MLA court took cognizance of the charge sheet submitted by the investigation agency in 2009 and simultaneously summoned Khan.

Recently, Khan was sentenced to a two-year jail term for his remarks made against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Khan was convicted in another case of hate speech in 2019 and sentenced to three years in jail by an MP-MLA magistrate court on October 17, 2022, which led to his disqualification from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly two days later.

In May this year, he was acquitted in another 2019 hate speech case for which he was convicted in October.