More than sixty district court advocates gathered at Delhi’s Tis Hazari complex on Saturday, protesting the police action against demonstrators during the CJP’s July 20 march to Parliament. They recited the Preamble and demanded a judicial inquiry into the crackdown.
More than sixty advocates practising in the district courts of Delhi gathered at the Tis Hazari court complex on Saturday to protest against the police action taken against demonstrators during the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) march towards Parliament from Jantar Mantar on July 20.
The demonstration, held within the court complex, was organised by a group called ‘Youth for Justice’. The participating lawyers alleged that the police had used excessive force against peaceful protesters, and gathered to voice their solidarity with the students and to press for accountability.
The advocates sang the national anthem and recited the Preamble to the Constitution in unison, affirming their commitment to the values of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity that it proclaims.
They described the gesture as a symbolic reaffirmation of their faith in the rule of law and in the right to peaceful protest guaranteed by the Constitution.
The choice of form places Saturday’s gathering within a wider pattern that has taken shape across the Bar over the past week the recitation of the founding text of the Republic, rather than a strike or a march, as the mode of protest. A group of advocates had similarly recited the Preamble on the Supreme Court lawns earlier in the week.
Addressing the gathering, advocate Ashu Bidhuri, the founder of Youth for Justice, contended that the students had been exercising their constitutional right to protest peacefully, and that the appropriate response from the police would have been dialogue rather than force.
He said,
“The students were peacefully protesting at the designated place under the rule of law. The rule of law doesn’t allow police to lathi-charge or teargas peaceful student protesters. In such a situation, dialogue should be promoted between police and the protesters.”
He added,
“Protest is a constitutional right which police cannot curtail with brutal force. Freedom of speech and expression was also put in danger on July 20.”
Bidhuri went on to demand a judicial inquiry overseen by a retired judge of the Supreme Court, and called for action against the police personnel alleged to have assaulted the student protesters,
“We are against the atrocities committed against the students, the lathicharge, the use of tear gas, pellet guns, etc. We demand a judicial inquiry, overseen by a retired Supreme Court judge. We demand that the guilty police officers be punished, terminated and that the students be given justice.”
The march was organised by the CJP, which has been demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged leak of the NEET question paper. On July 20, clashes broke out between demonstrators and security personnel after the protesters attempted to move towards Parliament.
The police used lathis and tear gas to disperse the crowd at several points, and FIRs were subsequently registered at the Connaught Place, Parliament Street and other police stations. The allegations of excessive force remain contested the Delhi Police have maintained that they acted with restraint and only to preserve public order and are now the subject of pending proceedings.
Saturday’s demonstration adds to a swell of institutional protest from the legal fraternity over the same events. The Supreme Court Bar Association has passed a resolution condemning the police action and sought an impartial inquiry, the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association and the Bombay Bar Association have issued statements of their own, and around 750 advocates across Delhi and Mumbai have signed statements deprecating the crackdown.
The demand for accountability voiced at Tis Hazari also mirrors the relief being pursued in court. A batch of petitions alleging excessive use of force is pending before the Delhi High Court, where a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia has issued notice and directed the preservation of CCTV footage and videography, with the matter listed for September 11.
The Supreme Court has separately listed a plea alleging police excesses against the students for July 27.