The Supreme Court refused to entertain a special leave petition filed by P. Ayyakannu, leader of a farmers’ association, to protest in Chennai’s iconic Marina Beach.
“We find no reason to entertain this special leave petition, which is, accordingly, dismissed,” a Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Ajay Rastogi said in a short order on Monday.
In September, the High Court had set aside an earlier order by a single judge permitting protests on the Marina. The Division Bench had said that “the right to protest has been continuously misunderstood [by those seeking permission for protests] as a right to inconvenience the general public”.
“The protesters who claim to espouse the cause of the public often forget that their right to protest ends when the other person’s right to free movement and the right to not listen starts,” the Division Bench of the High Court had observed.
The High Court upheld the authority of the State to regulate protests and their locations. It had held that no person, in our considered opinion, has a right to contend that he would protest only at a particular place and not anywhere else”.