The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to early hearing of a plea seeking contempt proceedings against senior Haryana officials for failing to prevent hate speeches and the disruption of open-air Friday namaz in Gurgaon by Rightwing groups over the past several months.

Petitioner Mohammad Adeeb has cited the 2018 apex court judgment in Tehseen S. Poonawalla vs Union of India that said district superintendents of police had a duty to prevent hate speeches and act against any perpetrators.

“The contemnors (chief secretary Sanjeev Kaush and director-general of police P.K. Agrawal) herein have failed to comply with the aforesaid directions,” Adeeb, a former Independent Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh, has said in his petition.

“I will look into it and post before appropriate bench immediately,” Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, who headed a bench that included Justices A.S. Bopanna and Hima Kohli, assured senior advocate Indira Jaising.

Jaising, appearing for Adeeb, had during the morning mentioning time — when urgent matters are raised — sought early hearing of the petition.

Muslims of Gurgaon, which lacks sufficient mosques, were allowed to offer the Friday namaz at 106 designated open-air spaces — a number whittled down to 37 in 2018 and 29 in November 2021 after protests from Hindutva groups and residents’ bodies.

In December last year, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said namaz in open spaces “will not be tolerated” and withdrew consent to Friday prayers at the designated open-air sites in Gurgaon.

The petition, filed through advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi in December, says the Muslims of Gurgaon had been performing Friday prayers peacefully in open-air sites allotted by the authorities for the past several decades, and could in no way be accused of encroaching on public spaces.

But recent months have witnessed “a constant rise in incidents revolving around the said Friday prayers at the behest of certain identifiable hooligans, with no local support, who portray themselves falsely in the name of religion and seek to create an atmosphere of hatred and prejudice against one community”, it says.

“This nefarious design is being given effect to by propagation and dissemination of hateful content through social media platforms spreading false narratives, terming the performance of Friday namaz… as being illegal and in a manner of some sort of encroachment.”

On April 9 last year, the petition says, residents had lodged a complaint with Sushant Lok police station against a man named Dinesh Bharti, accusing him of being a member of a vigilante group and one of the key perpetrators of the communal incidents.

It says that on September 29 and 30, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind had complained to the Gurgaon police commissioner and divisional commissioner, respectively, about the disruption of Friday namaz on September 17 and 24 and seeking action.

“Despite the above complaints there remained severe inaction at the hands of the contemnors and the incidents grew both in intensity and number every Friday at various locations” in Gurgaon, the petition says.

It adds that on October 10 last year, 22.10.2021, “members of far Right organisations” sought to disrupt Friday prayers at Sector 12A and Sector 47 in Gurgaon “by raising slogans, playing hymns and chants on loudspeakers”.