SC to hear plea to clear Shaheen Bagh protest site on Feb 7

The Supreme Court has scheduled, for February 7, hearing on a petition seeking directions to the police to take action to ensure smooth traffic movement on the Kalindi Kunj-Shaheen Bagh stretch, which has been closed for over a month due to anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests, making the public at large suffer.

The plea moved by lawyer-activist Amit Sahni on January 20 sought supervision of the situation in Shaheen Bagh where several women are sitting on an indefinite protest, by a retired Supreme Court judge or a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court to avoid any further deterioration in the situation and to circumvent any violence.

"The respondents (Delhi Police) cannot be permitted to behave like mute spectators particularly in a situation presently faced by persons living in the vicinity of Kalindi Kunj," said the plea.

Sahni contended that the Delhi High Court did not order the forthwith removal of traffic restrictions and observed that no direction can be issued on the methodology to handle protest and traffic movement successfully, and left it to the discretion of the police.

"No one can be permitted to occupy a public road for any reason whatsoever under the pretext of peaceful protest and that too for indefinite period to make others suffer for the same", his plea said.

The High Court had asked the police to examine the issue while bearing in mind that law and order is supposed to be maintained.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde on Tuesday asked BJP leader Nand Kishor Garg, the petitioner seeking court direction to remove road blockade at Shaheen Bagh, to approach the mentioning officer.

Shashank Deo Sudhi, lawyer for Garg, sought a direction from the court to the Centre, police and state government to take immediate steps to remove protesters from Shaheen Bagh.

The petition urged the apex court to pass appropriate directions, as the protests were causing severe inconvenience to the common people as an arterial road connecting Delhi and Noida had been blocked. The protests have also caused obstruction to entire vehicular and pedestrian movement from the road connecting two important cities i.e. Delhi and Noida.

( With inputs from IANS )