The Allahabad High Court today, taking suo moto cognisance of the putting up of posters of alleged anti-CAA protesters, has said that it will issue an order on 2pm on Monday.
Terming the action of the state in putting up the posters of alleged anti-CAA protesters (against whom recovery orders were passed by ADMs) ‘highly unjust’, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court headed by the Chief Justice Govind Mathur snubbed the state, commenting that the action was an ‘absolute encroachment on personal liberty’ of individuals.
After an initial hearing in the matter, it was adjourned for 3pm today, on the request of the state that the Advocate General (AG) would appear on behalf of the state. The AG, as the state said, would assist the court to initiate ‘corrective action'.
The court, in its conclusion during the morning hearing, commented that it hoped that good sense would prevail on the state and it would remove the hoardings before 3pm and apprise the court about this at the time of hearing.
At 3pm, the AG, Raghvendra Singh, appeared before the bench and made the following appeals.
The first was that the case ought to be contested in Lucknow as it fell in its jurisdiction and not the Allahabad High Court. The second point was that as the hoardings were put up in Lucknow, the matter was not within the jurisdiction of the Allahabad High Court. The AG also argued that PILs should not be lodged on behalf of those who apparently broke the law. He also said that the case did not merit suo moto cognisance. The next argument was that those who appeared on the posters were not ‘little Indians’ of no significance.
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The court noted that the state did not have any statutory authority for this exercise of putting up posters and hoardings in Lucknow.
On Friday night, numerous hoardings of those anti-CAA protesters who had been served recovery notices for damage to public property was put up across Lucknow. These hoardings bore the photographs of the ‘offenders’ and also their names and addresses, leading to fears that their lives and liberty had been put under danger by the state.
It should be noted that in two cases brought before it in 2009 and 2018, the Supreme Court had noted that till states framed legislation regarding computation and investigation into liability of damage to public property, the states would follow the following rules: that the computation of liability would be done by a serving/retired High Court judge or a retired district judge acting as a claims commissioner. In the Lucknow case, this was done by an official of the rank of Additional District Magistrate. The apex court had also noted, ‘Wherever a mass destruction to property takes place due to protests or thereof, the High Court might issue suo moto action and set up a machinery to investigate the damage caused and to award compensation related thereto’. It also talks of summoning ‘the existing video or other recordings from private and public sources to pinpoint the damage and establish nexus with the perpetrators of the damage’.
It is be noted that the Lucknow police have so far been unable to provide any video footage of the perpetrators of the damage—one of the leading reasons that has been considered by the court in granting bail to most of the accused.
The court will deliver its judgment on the matter on Monday.
