The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to urgently hear a petition filed by the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) seeking permission to hold a protest at Jantar Mantar against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The court said the hearing on the petition will take place on Oct. 12.
Alleging irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists, the Youth Congress has been demanding that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign.
When this petition was first mentioned in court on Thursday, the bench had said it would be taken up for hearing on Friday. However, since the petition did not figure in Friday’s list of cases, senior advocate Sanjay Ghosh, appearing for the Youth Congress, again sought an urgent hearing.
He said that all the defects in the petition had been rectified and that the matter needed to be heard immediately because permission was being denied to use the space allotted for the protest.
The bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Nitin Vasudev Sambre and Justice Sanjay Sharma rejected the request for an urgent hearing. Questioning what the need was to hear the case immediately, the judges reiterated that the hearing would take place on Monday.
The petition, filed on behalf of Youth Congress national president Uday Bhanu Chib, challenges the Delhi Police order issued on Oct. 1 denying permission to hold a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar.
The petition stated that an application was submitted to the police on Sept. 25 seeking permission to hold a protest involving around 100 to 150 people between Oct. 1 and 25.
The petition said the purpose of the protest is to raise issues related to the functioning, transparency, and accountability of constitutional institutions. It also stated that the protest was planned to exercise the freedom of speech and expression and the right to assemble peacefully guaranteed under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution.
The Youth Congress, while acknowledging that the government has the authority to regulate protests in the interest of public order, traffic management, and safety, has argued that this power should not be used to arbitrarily ban peaceful protests.
The petition states that restrictions on protests must be reasonable and proportionate to the circumstances, and that it is wrong to routinely deny permission without considering each application individually.
Therefore, the Youth Congress has requested the High Court to cancel the order issued by the Delhi Police on Oct. 1 and direct the authorities to reconsider the application seeking permission for the protest in accordance with the law.