Delhi High Court on Friday rejected Leftist student leader Neha Bora’s plea challenging a special executive magistrate’s notice to her to execute a “peace bond”, saying the magistrate had “sufficient material” before him.
Justice Subramonium Prasad, however, directed the SEM, who is an assistant commissioner of police, to furnish all the relevant material to Neha.
“The present case is not based merely on hearsay material, as contended by the learned senior counsel for the petitioner,” the judge said.
AISA, the CPIML Liberation student arm that Neha heads, said it would decide its next step after consulting lawyers.
Justice Prasad referred to three diary entries registered against Neha at various police stations on different dates and relating to different events.
“As such, this court cannot sit in the armchair of the SEM to test the subjective satisfaction of the sufficiency of material and as to whether the opinion has been correctly been arrived at by the SEM or not,” the court said.
General diary entries are everyday, chronological records of incidents that happen within a police station’s area of jurisdiction.
“Suffice it to say that in the opinion of this court, there was sufficient material before the magistrate before action has been taken...,” the court said.
It noted that there were six FIRs against Neha, registered at the police stations in Parliament Street, Barakhamba Road and Connaught Place.
Neha had told the high court on Thursday that citizens don’t need permission to hoist the national flag. She had sought the cancellation of the SEM’s notice, issued under Section 126 of the BNSS.
Section 126 empowers SEMs to ask a person to execute a bond “for keeping the peace” if there is credible information that the individual is likely to commit a breach of peace, disturb public tranquillity, or do a wrongful act that may cause a disturbance.
The notice asked Neha to appear before the SEM on October 19 and explain why she should not execute a personal bond of ₹10,000 with one surety “for keeping peace for a period of enquiry”.
Neha had been taken into preventive detention on October 16, the day the Cockroach Janata Party had called for a “Lehra Do Tiranga” march at Connaught Place. She was released on October 17.
Neha’s counsel, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, argued that the student leader had gone not to Connaught Place, where assemblies had been banned, but to Mandi House and therefore her detention was illegal.
Appearing for the police, additional solicitor-general Chetan Sharma disputed the submission.
CJP leaders
CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, accused of breaching peace bonds, appeared before the SEM at Mandir Marg police station on Friday.
Ranka later told reporters the visit was related to a verification process for their sureties. “Everything went well, and we have been given a new date sometime in the third week of November,” he said.
Das and Ranka had been released from judicial custody on Wednesday after a week in jail.
Ranka said the CJP leaders were waiting for a specific date from the crime branch, which is probing their alleged trespass into a private property to reach Jantar Mantar, a de-notified protest site. They had not appeared before the crime branch on Thursday and sought an exemption, which was allowed.
Ranka said the protests would continue “whether we are in jail or outside”.
“We have learnt a lot about ourselves and how the regime operates. We will, of course, change and evolve as necessary,” he said.
Das said: “Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation is inevitable.”