New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider a plea to direct the registration of criminal cases against Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for alleged hate speeches against Muslims and constitute an SIT to probe the allegations.

However, the top court lamented how it was being used to settle political scores ahead of elections. “But we have to say that when elections come, part of the elections is fought inside the Supreme Court,” Chief Justice of India Surya Kant orally observed while agreeing to examine separate petitions by CPM and CPI leaders.

Advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that no criminal case had been registered by the police against Sarma despite his alleged provocative speeches.

The bench, which included Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N.V. Anjaria, assured Pasha that the court would pick a convenient date for early hearing of the pleas.

The petitioners have urged the apex court to “take cognisance of a sustained pattern of hate speeches delivered by Respondent No. 4, Mr Himanta Biswa Sarma... which target, terrorise, and instigate hostility and overt violence against the Muslim community residing in the state of Assam”.

According to the petitioners, Sarma’s alleged hate speeches and statements had been widely disseminated across print, electronic and digital media platforms.

The petitions cited an AI-generated video, uploaded on social media and later taken down by the Assam BJP, that depicted a gun-wielding avatar of Sarma taking aim at a framed photograph of two Muslim men. The video was captioned “Point blank shot”.

The CPM has placed in the top court what it claimed were screenshots from the final frame of the video where Sarma’s AI avatar is shown flaunting a cowboy attire, accompanied by slogans that translate into “Foreigner-free Assam”; “Community, land, roots first”; “Why did you go to Pakistan”; and “No forgiveness for Bangladeshis”.

The Assam BJP deleted the video following intense backlash, but by then it had been widely shared and continues to ricochet around the Internet.

The petitioners submitted that the Constitution imposed an affirmative and inviolable duty upon ministers to preserve national unity and constitutional fraternity. Any conduct that foments communal hatred or social fragmentation strikes at the very root of the constitutional trust reposed in holders of public office, they said.

Sarma’s “statements deliberately obfuscate the distinction between illegal immigrants and Bengali-speaking Muslims in general by using slurs like ‘Miya’, which is a generic pejorative used in relation to Muslims”, the petitioners argued.

His statements “fuelling communal hostility... constitute a classic case of misfeasance in public office, being a malicious and deliberate abuse of constitutional power causing injury to a defined class of citizens. Such conduct also squarely attracts criminal liability under the BNS”, the CPM’s petition added.