Reuters, INDIA
Sources - NDTV
On the last year's ruling of the Supreme Court stating the anti-citizenship law protests held at Shaheen Bagh as unconstitutional, twelve activists filed a review petition.
"The right to protest cannot be anytime and everywhere. There may be some spontaneous protests but in case of prolonged dissent or protest, there cannot be continued occupation of public place affecting rights of others," Justices SK Kaul, Aniruddha Bose, and Krishna Murari's three-judge bench said while rejecting the petition for review. While the review petition was determined on February 9, last night the order came late.
The three-judge bench reiterated that public places cannot be occupied for protests and that public protests must be "in designated areas alone".
"Dissent and democracy go hand in hand," the top court had observed in its October 2020 verdict, stressing that "protests like these are not acceptable".
Shaheen Bagh of Delhi emerged as the epicentre of anti-CAA protests in 2019, where demonstrators, mainly women and children, have been sitting for more than three months.
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Critics have said that the controversial citizenship bill, which the government claims requires non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to be citizens if they have fled religious persecution and entered India before 2015, is "anti-Muslim"
Before the novel coronavirus pandemic pushed a majority of people indoors, a large wave of demonstrations had swept the nation against the CAA, and in March last year, the government announced one of the world's strictest lockdowns.
