Critically evaluate the trend of criminal complaints being filed against political leaders over speeches made during election campaigns/yatras.

Criminal complaints under Sections 153A and 505 IPC against leaders for campaign speech have multiplied, yet most collapse at the threshold of the prior-sanction bar in Section 196, CrPC [1]. The trend thus reflects both a genuine need to police divisive rhetoric and a growing tendency to use criminal process as political weaponry.

The legitimate case for such complaints

• Campaign and yatra speech reaches mass audiences at moments of heightened social sensitivity; Sections 153A and 505 IPC criminalise promoting enmity and statements conducing to public mischief [1].
• The Law Commission's 267th Report on Hate Speech (2017) noted that hate speech incites discrimination and hostility against identifiable groups, justifying criminal restraint alongside Article 19(2) [2].
• The Model Code of Conduct bars appeals to caste or communal feelings and activity that aggravates differences between communities — complaints operationalise this norm [3].
• Accountability applies equally to all leaders, deterring normalisation of divisive campaigning.

Why the trend invites criticism

• Forum shopping and harassment: remarks made in Akola (Maharashtra, 2022) were prosecuted through a private complaint in Lucknow, imposing distant, repeated litigation on the accused [4].
• Chilling effect: the wide, undefined language of 153A/505 lets contested historical and political criticism be recast as hate speech, deterring robust debate [2].
• Process as punishment: a single speech generated Magistrate–Sessions–Supreme Court litigation across four years, ending in quashing for want of State Government sanction — a procedural, not substantive, outcome [4].
• Discretionary sanction: since the State decides whether to sanction, the safeguard can itself be applied selectively along political lines [1].

The sanction requirement has proved a valuable filter, but a filter applied only after years of avoidable litigation is an inefficient safeguard. Courts should insist on sanction at the cognisance stage itself, complaints should be filed where the speech occurred, and the Law Commission's call for a precisely defined incitement standard deserves legislative action [2] — protecting both social harmony and the free political speech that Article 19(1)(a) guarantees.