Gauhati High Court on Thursday issued notices to Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and three other respondents over three petitions accusing him of delivering hate speeches against the minority Miya community and seeking directions to restrain him from making such remarks.

The three petitions were filed by three Guwahati-based citizens, the CPI and the CPM, seeking the court’s intervention to stop the alleged “hate” speeches.

A division bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury, after hearing the matter for nearly an hour, ordered issuance of notices to the four respondents. The Chief Justice orally observed that the speeches cited by the petitioners reflected a “fissiparous tendency”.

The respondents are the central government, the Assam government, chief minister Sarma and the Assam DGP.

According to LiveLaw.in, on the petitioners’ plea for an ad-interim order restraining Sarma from making alleged hate statements, the court orally said: “At this stage, let notices be issued first. It will be a normal restraint while this petition is pending consideration. Notice for both the main prayers and ad-interim prayers. We will keep it after the Bihu holidays.”

The court also said issuing notice to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was not necessary at this stage, the portal reported.

The public interest litigation (PIL) by the three citizens — social scientist Dr Hiren Gohain, former DGP Harekrishna Deka and news portal editor Paresh Malakar — sought directions restraining Sarma from allegedly making hate speeches and inciting civilians to take the law into their own hands against minority communities.

A lawyer familiar with the matter said the petitions were filed on Tuesday after the Supreme Court on February 16 directed the petitioners to approach the high court.

Malakar said they were “grateful” to the court for hearing the petitions “without any interruption” and for issuing the notices.

Their petition refers to Sarma’s public statements since 2023 related to the Bengali-speaking Miya Muslim community. It cites, among other instances, a video uploaded by the state BJP on February 7 on its X handle showing “Respondent No. 3 (Sarma)” holding agun and aiming it and shooting a bullet at two persons dressed in attire associated with the minority community (depicted through persons wearing a cap and beard) with the words ‘point blank shot’ under the video”.

The video, deleted soon after, had triggered widespread outrage.

The plea alleged that the chief minister was “sullying his high constitutional office and violating his constitutional oath of office under Article 164(3) read with the Third Schedule of the Constitution” by indulging in “blatant hate speech”, inciting violence, encouraging civilians to take law into their own hands, calling for social and economic boycott of the community, using derogatory innuendoes, and directing officials to misuse public office to harass the community.

It further stated that over the last month Sarma had made several such speeches and posts that were per se “hate speech”, and that this was not an isolated pattern but part of repeated instances over the past three years.

“The complete impunity with which such blatant acts of criminality have been allowed to go unchecked, appears to have emboldened Respondent No. 3 as well as his supporters,” the petition stated.