The Calcutta High Court permitted the Trinamool Congress to hold a meeting led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee instead of a proposed rally, capping attendance at 2,000 and imposing conditions, after weighing the right to hold political programmes against traffic and public-inconvenience concerns.
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has permitted the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to hold a meeting to be led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in place of a proposed rally, capping attendance at 2,000 people and imposing a set of conditions, after taking note of concerns over traffic congestion and inconvenience to local residents [Asit Mazumdar v. State of West Bengal].
Justice Saugata Bhattacharya permitted the meeting to be held between 1 PM and 3 PM with a maximum of 2,000 participants, subject to conditions including compliance with prescribed sound limits and a prohibition on inflammatory statements that could lead to communal tension. The police were directed to deploy adequate personnel during the meeting.
The dispute: a rally on a working day
The matter reached the Court after the TMC sought permission for a rally led by the Chief Minister. Appearing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandopadhyay pointed to a procession held by BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari from Dhakuria to Jadavpur University in the middle of a working day, and argued that political parties could not be made subject to a restriction requiring them to hold programmes only on Sundays.
“I am coming on the back of a program held by the CM from Dhakuria to Jadavpur in the middle of a working day,” the counsel submitted, referring to the State’s objection to the proposed programme. He contended that unless there was a State policy that rallies would not be permitted on weekdays, no such restriction could be imposed on the petitioner, and asked pointedly whether the democratic right to assemble was to be confined to Sundays alone. He further alleged that the State’s objection was “thoroughly an attempt” to prevent the programme.
The State’s objections
The Additional Advocate General, opposing the proposed programme, submitted that GT Road was narrow, averaging around 21 feet in width, and lay in a sensitive area. There were hospitals in the vicinity with no alternate route for ambulances or fire services, the State said, along with six schools nearby, and even on a Sunday it would be difficult to keep one flank of the narrow road open. The programme, moreover, was scheduled for a Friday.
The State also objected to the proposed venue, submitting that the field belonged to a Jagannath temple, and raised an apprehension of communally instigatory speeches in the area. Those are the State’s submissions, advanced in opposition to the plea, and were not findings of the Court.
Balancing the right with reasonable restrictions
The Court framed the question as one of balance. It observed that it had to weigh the competing interests, and that reasonable restrictions could be imposed on the manner in which a political programme was held. It suggested that the organisers either choose a Sunday or change the route, and noted that it could not permit the rally on GT Road on a Friday.
Significantly, the Court drew on its own past experience with such programmes. Recalling directions it had issued on earlier occasions requiring one flank of the road to be kept open during political events, it observed that those directions had not been complied with: “I have directed one flank to be kept open on two earlier occasions but it was not followed. If this recurs then the entire area will be choked.” When counsel suggested that one flank could be kept open, the Court declined to permit the rally on GT Road on a Friday on that basis.
The exchange reflects the settled constitutional position that the right to assemble and to hold political programmes, while protected, is not absolute, and may be regulated by reasonable restrictions in the interests of public order and the convenience of others, so long as the restriction does not amount to a prohibition on the exercise of the right itself. The Court’s task was to find a form of the programme that preserved the party’s ability to hold it while addressing the genuine concerns of traffic, emergency access and local disruption.
Meeting instead of procession
The resolution came through a modification proposed by the petitioner itself. As an alternative to the rally, Bandopadhyay proposed that the TMC be permitted to hold a meeting for three hours, without a procession, with a microphone and stage. The Court found that form acceptable, observing that “there will be no procession; if at a place a meeting is organised with a limited number of participants then there should not be difficulty,” and that adequate police deployment could address the concerns raised.
Dictating the order, the Court recorded that while the State had suggested a particular date and time, the petitioner’s alternative proposal appeared acceptable in view of the inconvenience that locals could face from a rally on a working day. It accordingly permitted the meeting between 1 PM and 3 PM with 2,000 participants, subject to the conditions imposed.
Why the order matters
Though framed as a routine permission order, the ruling is a compact illustration of how courts mediate between the right to political assembly and the competing rights of the wider public. Rather than grant or refuse the programme outright, the Court steered the parties towards a proportionate middle path, converting a road procession that would have choked a narrow, hospital-and-school-lined stretch into a static, time-bound and numerically-capped meeting. That is proportionality in practice: the least restrictive measure that still allows the right to be exercised.
The order is also notable for the even-handedness the petitioner sought to invoke. The TMC’s argument rested on parity, pointing to a rival party’s weekday procession to resist being confined to Sundays; the Court, for its part, anchored its caution not in the identity of the party but in the concrete facts of the route and its own past directions being flouted. The result leaves the underlying principle intact for all sides: political programmes may be held on working days, but the form, place and scale remain subject to reasonable, even-handed regulation. The conditions on sound limits and against inflammatory speech, and the direction for police deployment, round out an order aimed at letting the meeting proceed without the disruption or friction the State had apprehended.
Case Title: Asit Mazumdar v. State of West Bengal
Bench: Justice Saugata Bhattacharya, Calcutta High Court
Date of Order: September 10, 2026