The Hyderabad High Court on Monday sought to know from the state government as to why it was dragging its feet over granting sanction for prosecution of MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi for his 2012 hate speech. The court gave a week's time to both the state and police to spell out their stand clearly on the issue.

Owaisi junior was booked by the Nirmal police for delivering a hate speech in Nirmal on December 8 and a separate case was registered against him in Nizamabad on December 22 for the same reason.