Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: August 30, 2022 at 10:01 IST
The investigation into the hate speeches at the Haridwar Dharam Sansad held in December 2021 led to the arrest of Jitendra Tyagi, formerly known as Waseem Rizvi.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to extend the interim medical bail granted to him.
Tyagi was asked to surrender by a Bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and BV Nagarathna by Monday of the next week.
“You are on interim medical right? Surrender first. Go and surrender first. He isn’t a senior citizen, he is 51,” the Bench stated orally.
The Court set the case for next Friday and asked Tyagi to present the surrender certificate by Monday.
Justice Rastogi said, “He should spend at least 7 days in custody.”
On May 17, the Supreme Court granted interim medical bail to Tyagi, emphasising that Tyagi should not make any hate speeches that would damage social harmony.
For his inflammatory speech at Haridwar in December of last year, Tyagi, the former chairman of the Shia Waqf Board who recently converted to Hinduism, was arrested by the Uttarakhand Police in January 2022.
After his bail plea was rejected by the Uttarakhand High Court in March of this year, he approached the Supreme Court. Tyagi has recently been involved in a number of lawsuits.
Recent notice of a complaint against him for insulting Islam and the Prophet has been taken by a Srinagar court. The Central and Uttarakhand governments received notice from the Supreme Court in January regarding a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking for a probe into the Haridwar Dharam Sansad.
A public interest litigation (PIL) petition by Rizvi asking for the deletion of specific chapters from the Holy Quran on the grounds that they are illegal and encourage extremism was rejected by the Supreme Court in April of last year. The Court assessed Tyagi costs of 50,000 while rejecting the plea.
A lawsuit seeking the banning of “Muhammad,” a self-published book by Waseem Rizvi, was dismissed by the Delhi High Court in December of last year.
His response was sought by the Allahabad High Court in response to a petition seeking that he refrain from posting comments about Islam on social media.