The Supreme Court on Wednesday found the indefinite ‘occupation’ of a public road by the Shaheen Bagh protestors unacceptable. The apex court said the protest, considered an iconic dissent mounted by mothers, children and senior citizens of Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), became inconvenient to commuters.
“We have to make it clear that public places cannot be occupied indefinitely whether in Shaheen Bagh or elsewhere. These sort of protests are not acceptable and authorities should act… they must keep such spaces free from obstruction,” the court said, adding the “administration cannot wait for orders from court to clear” the protest sites.
A three-judge bench of Justices SK Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari delivered the judgment on a batch of petitions that called for a decision if there can be “an indefinite period of protests in a common area (that) creates inconvenience for others”.
“Democracy and dissent go hand in hand, but then the demonstrations expressing dissent have to be in designated places alone. The present case was not even one of protests taking place in an undesignated area, but was a blockage of a public way which caused grave inconvenience to commuters”, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who authored the verdict for a three-judge Bench, observed.
The ruling came in the context of the long-running protest against the CAA, in south Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh that started on 15 December, 2019, and ended on 23 March, not because of police action but the lockdown imposed to fight the coronavirus disease.
The stage and other facilities put in place by the protestors were subsequently dismantled by the police. Such protests should be allowed only in areas specifically designated for the purpose.