'File Petition' : Supreme Court Declines Plea For Suo Motu Case Over BJP MP's Comments On Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

The Supreme Court on Thursday turned down a lawyer's plea to take suo motu cognisance of alleged derogatory comments by a BJP legislator against Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and asked him to file an appropriate petition.

A lawyer requested the Chief Justice of India to take a suo motu case over the comments made by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha member Nagendra Roy alias Ananta Maharaj.

Declining to take suo motu action, CJI Surya Kant asked the lawyer to file an appropriate petition. The Chief Justice said that suo motu actions are taken in exceptional cases where the affected parties are unable to approach the Courts.

"You are well conversant; you can very well argue. Why do you want suo motu? Why can't you file a petition?" CJI Surya Kant said.

"In what cirucumstances suo motu is taken? Only when there is a serious cause...in the issue of the environment, the forest will not speak, we have to take care of that. Also, there are marginalised people, who can't come to the Court. There was a case of an 83-year-old widow and her blind son; we had to take suo motu case, because who will look after them. But when there is a competent lawyer, why to take suo motu," CJI said.

The lawyer then pointed out that the Supreme Court had taken suo motu case over the NCERT book on the ground that it was denigrating the judiciary. 

"You file a petition," CJI said. 

Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who was sitting along with CJI Kant, said, "Your allegation is that someone made a speech akin to a hatespeech. We have to examine that as per the established prinicples...you file a petition."