Cannot hold agitations at railway stations, says SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that railway stations cannot be used like Jantar Mantar in Delhi by railway employees or labour unions to hold demonstrations whenever they wanted to severely impede passengers' movement.
Within days of the SC allowing resumption of Jantar Manatar as the common protest venue in the capital, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud faced a petition by Northern Railways Mazdoor Union, Mumbai, which had challenged a Bombay HC order restraining them from holding demonstrations inside the Pune railway station.

The HC had asked them not to hold protests within 150 metres of the railway station. The petitioner union through advocate Santosh Kumar alleged that the HC had passed the order on a PIL "severely and unreasonably curtailing the democratic right of the petitioners to hold peaceful demonstration" without even hearing them.

Appearing for railways, advocate Merusagar Samantaray pointed out that the HC had found that some members of the union had pasted obscene posters in the station premises. On the basis of FIR filed, criminal prosecution had commenced against some union members. The SC had stayed the proceedings before a Pune trial court on January 8.

During the final hearing on Wednesday, the CJI-led bench brushed aside the arguments by the petitioner that the union had an office within the railway station premises and therefore had a right to protest near it. The bench said, "All of us are concerned as your demonstrations inside the railway station causes grave inconvenience to entry and exit of passengers. In the 1970s, the high courts used to impose a 500 metre restriction from the concerned premises for holding of demonstration."

The bench said: "Jantar Mantar is different than a railway station. Unlike Jantar Mantar, railway station is the only access point for passengers to board and de-board trains."

Clarifying that its order will be binding on entire Maharashtra, the bench said: "If the union members have a fundamental right, so do the passengers." It also criticised the railways for filing an affidavit specifying that 50 metre restriction on holding demonstrations would be enough. "How did you file such an affidavit when the HC has specified 150 metres," the bench asked.