‘Point-blank’ video row: Supreme Court to hear CPI(M) petition on Assam CM’s controversial gun video

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, February 10, 2026, granted urgent hearing on a petition filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) seeking registration of a First Information Report (FIR) on allegations of collective speech attributed to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Textual expressions such as ‘short shot’ and ‘no mercy’.

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said, “When elections are held, some of the elections are held in the Supreme Court.”

Chief Justice Kant agreed to grant a hearing date to Lawyer Nizam Pasha, who orally reported the petition for an early date.

The petition accused Mr. Sarma of falling into a “persistent pattern of hate speech.”

Hostility towards the Muslim community: Petitioner

The petitioner said Mr. Sarma, while discharging the Constitutional duty of the Chief Minister of Assam, made speeches “targeting, terrorizing and inciting hostility and open violence against the Muslim community residing in Assam”.

“Respondent No. 4 (Sarma) has made public speeches and statements on many occasions since assuming office and has been widely disseminated across print, electronic and digital media platforms – within and outside the boundaries of the State. These statements, when viewed cumulatively, constitute ex facie hate speech as they demean and disparage a minority, propagate false and stigmatizing stereotypes, promote social and economic boycott and conditions of exclusion and violence against the community”.

On February 7, 2026, “the social media post that circulated as a video in the public domain on Assam

“The final frames in the sequence culminate in a stylized portrait of Defendant No. 4 depicted in cowboy attire, accompanied by additional textual slogans translated as “Assam where no outsiders are allowed”, “Community first, land, roots”, “Why did you go to Pakistan”, and “No forgiveness for Bangladeshis”. Viewed in the surrounding factual and political context, the cumulative symbolic and visual elements contained in the material rhetoric means: Strengthening and reinforcing the climate of hostility, exclusion and intimidation towards the minority community”.

The video spread widely despite being deleted

The petition stated that the video was removed from the public domain after strong reactions. However, the material continued to be widely circulated and circulated through many other accounts and platforms.

The petition recalls that on the strength of national negotiations and recommendations of the National Integration Conference to combat communalism, regionalism and separatist tendencies, the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act, 1963 came into force.

The 1963 Act had amended Articles 84 and 173 of the Constitution and the Oath Forms in the Third Schedule to expressly mandate that Ministers and other Constitutional officers must take an oath to protect the sovereignty and integrity of India.

“This Constitutional oath constitutes the fundamental assurance that public power will be exercised with fidelity to the Constitution and in furtherance of fundamental values ​​of constitutional morality, equality, fraternity and the sovereignty and integrity of India,” the petition said.

The constitutional order imposes a positive and inviolable duty on the Union Ministers and the States to preserve national unity and constitutional brotherhood. Consequently, the petition stated that any behavior that incites social hatred or social disintegration strikes at the root of constitutional trust in holders of public office and falls outside the permissible ministerial jurisdiction.