The SG sought to know: “What is your source of information? What is the evidence?”
The Government of India’s law officer strongly opposed the language used against Home Minister Amit Shah before the Delhi High Court in a plea seeking independent investigation into the violence that broke out in Jamia Millia Islamia University last December, and sought that the same be deleted immediately.
Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, while referring to the averments made in the rejoinder filed by the petitioner, said: “I take exception to certain language used here”.
The rejoinder was filed by the petitioner, advocate Nabila Hasan, to the Delhi Police affidavit submitted in a batch of PILs related to incidents of December 13 and 15 last year.
The content the SG objected to read: “The Delhi Police force behaved as if they were common criminals. Their conduct was such that it would appear to the common person that the police force had been given instruction from the Home Minister to break the law at will and to cause as much pain and damage and loss to the public as possible.”
He flagged the issue before a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan, further referring to the rejoinder, which states that “the police were utterly lawless obviously with clearance from the top”.
“It is very probable that the order to mercilessly beat the students and break their bones as they began to assemble outside Jamia to begin a peaceful march to the Parliament came from the Home Minister himself,” Mehta read out to the court, and submitted: “I take serious objection to this.”
The SG sought to know: “What is your source of information? What is the evidence?”
“You cannot malign a constitutional authority like this. This brings the cat out of the bag. I have been saying this since the beginning that there is an agenda behind these petitions, which is being pursued so vigorously,” he argued.
Taking note of the objection, the bench questioned the counsel for the petitioner, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, as to why such allegations were made “Just think, if you are moving,” the bench said.
Gonsalves submitted that in order to narrow down the controversy the lines pointed out by the SG as objectionable shall be deleted.