Protesters who targeted Kejriwal’s home ‘exceeded fundamental right to peacefully protest’: Court

Additional Sessions Judge Naveen Kumar Kashyap denied bail to the eight accused observing that “prima facie it is clear that their fundamental right to peacefully protest is exceeded by them knowingly/intentionally”.

The court said that the “liberty of an individual is not absolute”.

“The society, by its collective wisdom through the process of law, can withdraw the liberty that it has sanctioned to an individual when an individual becomes a danger to the societal order. A society expects responsibility and accountability from the member, and it desires that the citizens should obey the law, respecting it as a cherished social norm,” the court said.

It emphasised that when an individual “behaves in a disharmonious manner ushering in disorderly thing, which the society disapproves, the legal consequences are bound to follow”.

The court agreed that the right to assemble and protest by a political party is a fundamental right, but added that “such right is subject to certain restrictions and is not an uncontrolled one”.

“In the present case, it is not a simple case that they protested and ended their protest then and there… despite telling protesters and their leaders, including the present applicants, they can

protest at a particular place, they did not comply with the same,” the court said.

Senior advocate Kirti Uppal, who argued on behalf of the accused, told the court that the offences in this case are punishable with imprisonment of less than seven years and, in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines, police “did not serve any notice and straight away arrested the accused illegally”.

Uppal argued that “there was no intention to hurt anyone” and it “was only a demonstration which is a right of every citizen and political party under the constitution”.

The court agreed with Uppal’s arguments and sent a copy of the order to the DCP concerned for action against the police for not following proper guidelines.

The police told the court that a request to protest by Tejasvi Surya, national president, BJYM and other BJP leaders and supporters outside the CM’s residence had been denied.

Police submitted that on March 30, around 200-250 BYJM supporters were guided about a designated spot for a protest, but “they started moving towards ‘first layer’ of barricades and started pushing the barricades to break the chain”.

Police argued that water cannons were used against the protesters when they crossed the second layer of barricades, but some of them managed to sneak through the third layer of barricades via the bushes and started charging heavily.

The state prosecutor argued that the investigation was at an initial stage and search for the other absconding accused was underway.

Nearly 200 members of the BJYM, the BJP’s youth wing, had staged a protest outside Kejriwal’s house against his remarks on the ‘The Kashmir Files’ movie. The men broke the boom barrier, kicked and banged the main gate before painting it red. They also broke a CCTV camera outside the residence.