Bengaluru, Feb 14: In a major embarrassment to the police, the Karnataka High Court has termed as illegal the prohibitory orders imposed under Section 144 of CrPC by the City Police Commissioner in December 2019 in the light of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Bengaluru.
The orders were passed “without application of mind” and without following due procedures, the court noted. Giving reasons for upholding the arguments of the petitioners that there was no application of mind by the Police Commissioner (Bhaskar Rao) before imposing restrictions, a division bench of the High Court said he had not recorded the reasons, except reproducing the contents of letters addressed to him by the Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs).
The state government had contended that prohibitory orders were passed based on reports submitted by the DCPs who expressed apprehension about anti-social elements creating law and order problems and damaging public property by taking advantage of the anti-CAA protests.
The High Court bench said the Police Commissioner should have conducted inquiry as stated by the Supreme Court to check the reasons cited by the DCPs who submitted identical reports. Except for this, there were no facts laid out by the Police Commissioner, the court said.
“There is complete absence of reasons. If the order indicated that the Police Commissioner was satisfied by the apprehension of DCPs, it would have been another matter,” it said.
“The apex court has held that it must record the reasons for imposition of restrictions and there has to be a formation of opinion by the district magistrate. Only then can the extraordinary powers conferred on the district magistrate can be exercised. This procedure was not followed. Hence, exercise of power under Section 144 by the commissioner, as district magistrate, was not at all legal”, the bench said.
“We hold that the order dated December 18, 2019 is illegal and cannot stand judicial scrutiny in terms of the apex court’s orders in the Ramlila Maidan case and Anuradha Bhasin case,” the HC bench said while upholding the arguments of Prof Ravivarma Kumar, who appeared for some of the petitioners.
Partly allowing a batch of public interest petitions questioning the imposition of prohibitory orders and cancelling the permission granted for protesters in the city, the bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangoudar observed that, unfortunately, in the present case, there was no indication of application of mind in passing prohibitory orders.
The bench said the observation was confined to this order only and it cannot be applicable in general. If there is a similar situation (necessitating imposition of restrictions), the state is not helpless, the court said.
The comment posted from the Facebook account of Shankar Prasad read:?“Sattavarella Christaralla, Namagenu Bidi” (All those who died are Christians, why should we bother?).
Comments
now innocent children are also not spared by hindutva
These kids are like clan flowers not seen the world. Very innocent.
How a person can have hatred OR enmity with such innocent kids.
This guy does not represent all Hindus, this is his own corrupt ideology. However his fellow Hindus have responsibility to correct him, to change him by hook OR Crook. One guy spoils the name of entire community is not acceptable in the civil society.
We are with the saddened parents and friends of these kids.
Uneducated goons and their leaders.....expected......when this guy dies please notify in media so the whole world can comment....Sattadu ondu naai alla ....municipality garbagige haaki....
shame on him no matter what he is or which religion he belongs to, he is not worthy of being human.. if he has no mercy for humanity.. put those aside, we have more people from different community who prayed for all those blessed souls.. today i attended juma in one of masjid.. and there was dua after prayer including these children's n all those who passed away in such tragedy. #beahumanfirst #humanityismypriority
RSS and Bajrangi has become more dangerous for human. They started to think like animals.
After worshiping stone for many years their heart has became stones permanently.
WHAT one can expect from this inhumans, cruel communal minds,even animals have mercy to each others and they express it some forms, but these so called chad.....is are now proved to be worse than that.. may the almighty creator protect the people of our nation from such ANTI HUMANS..
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