New Delhi: The Supreme Court today, February 16, asked petitioners who approached it seeking action against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s hate speech to approach the Gauhati high court instead, claiming their move to approach the apex court was a “calculated” effort to “demoralise high courts.”A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi refused to invoke Article 32 – which guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court directly for the enforcement of fundamental rights – and said that the petitioners should first approach the jurisdictional high courts.“All these issues can be effectively adjudicated by the jurisdictional High Court. We see no reason to entertain this here, and thus we relegate the petitioners to the jurisdictional High Court. We request the High Court Chief Justice to expeditious hearing,” the bench said, according to LiveLaw.The three petitions were filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja and four Assamese individuals, respectively.Sarma’s historySarma, who has been escalating his hate speech against Muslims, had said in late January that his job was to “make the Miya people suffer”, and then declared that Muslims would not be allowed to vote in Assam. “Whoever can give trouble in any way should give, including you. In a rickshaw, if the fare is Rs 5, give them Rs 4. Only if they face troubles will they leave Assam… These are not issues. Himanta Biswa Sarma and the BJP are directly against Miyas,” he had said.‘Miya’ refers to the Bengali-speaking and East Bengal-origin Muslim population of Assam. While the term is used pejoratively by the likes of Sarma, the community has also reclaimed it and are known to use it to identify themselves.When rights defender Harsh Mander filed a police complaint against Sarma, the latter claimed he would initiate multiple legal cases in response.Then on February 7, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Assam wing posted and then deleted a video depicting Sarma shooting Muslims, marking an illegal escalation of Sarma’s already communal haranguing of the state’s Muslim population. Many wrote on social media that this was a clear offence under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.But these incidents were not sudden. The petitioners in this case had provided a detailed chronology from 2021 to February 2026, cataloguing speeches and statements allegedly calling for social, economic, and civic exclusion of Bengali-origin Muslims, including exhortations to deny them livelihoods, transport, land, and voting rights. Their petition had claimed that these statements have had real-world consequences, with reports of economic discrimination, harassment, and exclusion being justified by perpetrators as acting on the chief minister’s directions.In 2023, the Supreme Court had directed all governments to register suo motu first information reports against those who spread hate through their speeches, without waiting for someone to file a complaint. Ahead of the hearing, Ajaz Ashraf had written on The Hindu Businessline, “With no one willing to check Sarma, only the Supreme Court can do so, for it must realise that his speeches divide the society more than UGC regulations could have.”‘We have to deal with our own arrears’Repeating what he said when the petition was first brought up on February 10, the CJI appeared to claim that the case was brought to the highest court of the land because of the impending elections in Assam.“Wherever the elections come, this Court becomes a political battleground,” he said.LiveLaw also reported that the CJI appealed to the political parties to fight elections based on “mutual respect and self-restraint.”The report noted that when the bench expressed reluctance to invoke Article 32, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, for some of the petitioners, submitted that it was not just a matter relating to commission of offences but also involved the violation of the oath of office. Singhvi cited how the petitioners are seeking SIT investigation against the chief minister of Assam to say that the high court may not be the appropriate court for this. “Don’t undermine the authority of the High Courts,” CJI Kant said in response.“It has become a trend now that every matter lands up in the Supreme Court. Don’t demoralise the High Court judges,” CJI said.“If the constitutional and social fabric of this country is threatened, shouldn’t 32 be invoked? He is brazenly speaking against one entire community,” Singhvi said.The LiveLaw report noted how Singhvi said there were 17 cases where the Supreme Court has directly entertained “lesser matters.”When Singhvi said that the petitioners be allowed to approach a high court other than the one in Assam – the very state of which Sarma is chief minister, the CJI appeared to be displeased.“This is very unfortunate submission, I outrightly reject this…We have to deal with our own arrears. Entire effort is to demoralise HC. There’s very calculated move to undermine high courts,” the CJI said.Singhvi, the LiveLaw report said, noted that Sarma was in turn “demoralising the constitutional ethos of the country.” He said Sarma had been delivering hate speech not just in Assam, but in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to highlight that this was a pan-Indian case.“We are only objecting to the short-cut method, only because the Supreme Court matter will come in media in social media…respect the high court, have faith in the system…We are absolutely confident that the high court will deal with the matter in accordance with the principles..,” the CJI then said.Senior Advocate Chander Uday Singh, appearing for four Assamese individuals, said that they had written a letter to the Gauhati high court Chief Justice seeking a suo motu intervention, but no action was taken. The CJI then said that writing a letter and filing a petition were different.The CJI also refused Singh’s request to the bench to make some general comments on the need for restraint by constitutional functionaries. “We can’t comment as we have taken the view that this should go to HC. Have some system which is in built, let’s respect the system that constitutional framework provides,” he said.