India, April 29 -- Law is adequate to punish hate speech, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday, as it turned down a petition to declare it and rumour mongering as separate offences under the penal code, saying constitutional courts cannot compel the legislature to create laws and underlining the enforcement deficit.

"Creation of criminal offences lies within the legislative domain. The judiciary cannot create new offences in keeping with the separation of powers under the Constitution," said a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta.

Advocate and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay filed a petition in 2021 seeking the declaration of hate speech as a separate offence. The court has since taken up pleas over hate s...