SC reserves order on plea seeking Guidelines on right to Protest in wake of Shaheen Bagh

On Monday, the Apex Court reserved its order on a number of pleas seeking guidelines & other directions on the right to protest in wake of the Shaheen Bagh protest where a group of people had gathered for months to protest against the Citizenship

Amendment Act (CAA) blocking a key road connecting Delhi & Noida.

A 3-Judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul & also comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose & Krishna Murari, reserved its order & observed that the right to protest should be balanced with the right of movement of people.

"The right to protest is not absolute, but there is a right," the bench said adding that protests can be done peacefully.

The Supreme Court, hearing a batch of pleas filed by the petitioner & lawyers-in-persons Amit Sahni & Shashank Deo Sudhi against protest, which had blocked a high-traffic road causing problems to the commuters, & seeking removal of the protestors.

Sahni submitted, "In the future, the protest should not continue as per their choice & demand. In the larger public interest, a decision may be taken. I request the Supreme Court to keep this matter pending & an elaborate order may be passed".

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, a senior law officer of the Central Govt, said that earlier the Top Court had refused to entertain any intervention in the case.

Thousands of people, including a large number of Muslim women, had staged a sit-in protest at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area blocking a stretch of GD Birla Marg since mid-Dec 2019, against the CAA & the proposed National Register of Citizens.

The Supreme Court had earlier appointed Senior Lawyers -- Sanjay Hedge, Sadhana Ramachandran, & Ex-bureaucrat Wajahat Habibullah -- as interlocutors to talk to the protestors & convince them to demonstrate at an alternate location.

The interlocutors had submitted their report in a sealed cover in Feb.

The pleas filed in the matter had sought directions to the respondents, including the Centre, for laying down "detailed, comprehensive & exhaustive guidelines relating to outright restrictions for holding protest/agitation" leading to obstruction of the public space.

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