Supreme Court: A bench of SK Kaul and KM Joseph has said that the protesters at Shaheen Bagh cannot block public road and create inconvenience for others. Issuing notice to Delhi Government & Delhi Police, the Court posted the matter on February 17, 2020 and said,
“Protest has been going on for a long time, how can you block a public road.”
The Court observed that the protesters can continue their protests but in an area designated for protests.
The observation of the Court came while hearing the PILs seeking directions to the Central government for laying down guidelines relating to restrictions for holding protests leading to obstruction to public places.
The PIL, filed by Dr Nand Kishore Garg and Amit Sahni through their lawyer Shashank Deo Sudhi earlier this week, also sought appropriate directions to the Centre and others for removal of protesters from Shaheen Bagh near Kalindi Kunj. Sudhi had, on Monday, mentioned the matter before a three-judge Bench headed by CJI SA Bobde, who asked him to approach the registry for urgent listing of the matter.
The petition seeks appropriate direction to the respondents, including the Union of India (UOI) for laying down detailed, comprehensive and exhaustive guidelines relating to outright restrictions for holding protest/agitation leading to obstruction of the public place. It said that people in Shaheen Bagh are illegally protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, by blocking the common and public road connecting Delhi to Noida.
The Shaheen Bagh protest is an ongoing 24/7 sit-in protest, led by women, that began with the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) which seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who came to the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.
Several petitions have been filed challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA. Earlier, on December 18, 2019, the 3-judge bench of SA Bobde, CJ and BR Gavai and Surya Kant, JJ had refused to stay the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
**READ THE ACT HERE: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019
