The Supreme Court of India between 2022 and early 2026, framed Hate Speech as a grave constitutional wrong and police inaction as Contempt, yet failed to imitate a single contempt proceeding. Despite strong suo moto directions in Shaheen Abdullah and Ashwini Kumar Upadhayay, and a ‘sacrosanct duty’ rhetoric, the court signalled the closure of its landmark petitions on hate speech on January 20th, 2026 forcing its inherent ‘contempt’ thunder into an unenforced precedent.

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Najeed Naved Siddiqui​​​

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The Judicial Directives on ‘Hate’ Speech

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On 21 October 2022, the Supreme Court in Shaheen Abdullah v. Union of India, W.P. (C) No. 940/2022 through Justice K.M. Joseph and Justice Hrishikesh Roy issued a clarion call to the police chiefs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to register suo moto FIRs against hate speech under the Indian Penal Code section 153A (promoting enmity between groups), section 153B (prejudicial imputations), section 295A (outraging religious feelings), and section 505(2) (public mischief, without the need of formal complaints to be filed. The Court reinforced this mandate with a warning that “any hesitation to act will be viewed as contempt of this Court and appropriate action will be taken against the erring officers.”

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In the author’s view, this episode was anything but routine admonition. Rather, the bench’s recourse to the Preamble’s commitment to secularism and fraternity,  may be read as signalling that hate speech ought to be treated as a “very serious issue” that “shocks the conscience” in a pluralistic democracy that is India. On April 28th, 2023, Justice K.M. Joseph and Justice B.V. Nagarathna universalised the mandate in the lead petition in Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, extending the mandate to all States and Union Territories, directing that “police authorities must act irrespective of the religion of the speaker or political affliction”. They reiterated that inaction will invite contempt.

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These directives of the court built upon earlier judicial precedents, particularly the decision in Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India (2018), where Justice A.K. Sikri’s bench condemned mob vigilantism often targeting minorities as antithetical to the guarantee of life with dignity under Article 21, and mandated the establishment of fast-track courts and appointment of nodal officers. Yet, as of February 2026, not a single contempt proceeding has been initiated against any State police force. Petitioners in Shaheen Abdullah, 2022 and  Tushar Gandhi, 2022 invoked contempt over Maharashtra’s alleged inaction on 50 hate rallies and Uttarakhand’s Haridwar Dharma Sansad (December 2021), where calls for ‘genocide’ went rather unchecked. The Court sought affidavits and Investigating Officer (IO) reports (e.g., January 13th, 2023 order), but the matters were tagged to the main petitions without any punitive escalation. In November 2023 notices were issued to Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Nagaland to ascertain the appointment of Nodal Officers, yet compliance filings sufficed; no erring officers were summoned.

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The Paradox of Contempt and Judicial Inaction

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November, 2025, starkly revealed a paradox: the Court treated hate speech as a grave constitutional wrong and characterised police inaction in such cases as contemptuous, yet refused to monitor a boycott call against a community. The bench of  Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta remarked that for every instance of hate speech occurring across the country, the Court would not function as a “National Monitoring Authority”. The court that called prevention of hate crimes a “sacrosanct duty” (in Tehseen S. Poonawalla) suggested an alternative route for its own mandated framework, creating a paradox of paradoxes, despite its own contempt sword dangling overhead. By 20 January 2026, it signalled the closure of the 2021 batch of petitions, citing the framework’s establishments amid the critiques of “institutional closure”. A petition filed in February 2026 on the racial violence against North-easterners was deflected to the Attorney General, with the bench deeming the race-specific framing as “regressive”.

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The Judicial Burden of Selective Suo Moto Valor

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An experiential study revealed that suo moto cases often tilted in favour of the environment and administration, suggesting non-intervention in majoritarian flashpoints. The selective judicial valour demands a profound exposition. The remedy, though, does not lie in the lethargy of the legislature but is embedded in the judicial spine. In the absence of such steps, the secular pledge of the Republic’s secularism risks becoming nothing more than a hollow ideal, that is bold in chambers but timid in the streets.  A decisive contempt action is not an excess but an absolute imperative for preserving judicial authority. Indian constitutional machinery thrives on balance, but this equilibrium shouldn’t mean equilibrium inaction or be mistaken for paralysis. If hate speech indeed erodes fraternity, as the court suggests, then enforcing its own edicts demands more than issuing parchment threats. Otherwise, the Republic’s secular fabric would continue to fray while judges lament from Olympian heights, a thunder without the storm.