Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 22: The Delhi High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a plea by All India Students’ Association (AISA) president Neha Bora challenging a Delhi Police notice asking her to furnish a “peace” bond before a Special Executive Magistrate.
The order is likely to be pronounced on Friday evening.
During the hearing, Ms Bora challenged the police notice saying citizens don’t need permission to hoist the national flag. The submission was made while referring to the Delhi Police notice which said that Ms Bora hoisted the national flag without seeking permission.
“Question is does this (notice) have substance? We don’t need permission to hoist the national flag. They need a class on law,” senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing Neha Bora, contended before Justice Subramonium Prasad.
Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, representing Delhi Police, raised objection on the maintainability of the petition. Ms Bora, who has been at the forefront of protests against the alleged irregularities in the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, has sought quashing of the notice and directions to the police not to take any coercive action against her.
The notice, issued on October 17 under Section 126 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), asked the student leader to appear before the court of a Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) on October 19 and show cause why she should not execute a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with one surety “for keeping peace for a period of enquiry.”
Section 126 empowers the SEM to enforce such bond signing if there is credible information that a person is likely to breach peace, disturb public tranquillity, or commit a wrongful act that may cause disturbance.
The court also noted that as far as Neha Bora is concerned, she has already been branded as a ‘bad’ person, and is now being asked to promise that she will ‘be good.’ When an individual comes before the court and promises to behave properly, it implies that they have not been behaving properly until now.
On court’s observations, Mr Sharma questioned: when there are six FIRs registered against Neha Bora, can she truly be considered completely innocent?
Neha Bora, who has been at the forefront of protests against the alleged irregularities in the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, has sought quashing of the notice and directions to the police not to take any coercive action against her. Neha Bora was taken into preventive detention on October 16 when she was on her way to join the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ march. She was released on October 17.