India’s Top Court Opens Multiple Fronts On Electoral Rolls And Policing Of Protests

India’s Supreme Court issued notices on Thursday across a cluster of cases arising from nearly two weeks of protests over the country’s electoral rolls, and one of the petitioners said the court had indicated it may frame guidelines to protect women demonstrators and women journalists

Representational Image Via: @INCIndia on X

The court issued notice to the Election Commission and its commissioners on the opposition petition over the revision of electoral rolls. Petitions concerning the police operation of 10 October were heard together. The advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi, one of the petitioners, said the court had taken cognisance and indicated it intended to issue guidelines, particularly for women protesters and women journalists. 

The Delhi High Court separately declined to restrain a protest called for Friday at Central Park in Connaught Place, on an application by a licensed street vendor who said his business would suffer. The court recorded an assurance from the authorities that all lawful measures would be taken and listed the matter for 3 November. The municipal council also closed the park for two days.

Delhi Police, citing Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which allows authorities to prohibit gatherings, urged people not to assemble, while offering to let a selected group carry the national flag and sing the anthem at a suitable spot. Members of two left-wing student and youth bodies were detained during a flag march.

The ruling party held two press conferences, both built on allegations concerning women.

Its spokesman Gaurav Bhatia, who appeared in some of Thursday’s cases as a senior advocate, said a lawful protest must be peaceful, must have prior permission and must be held at a designated site. He said Rahul Gandhi and his supporters had entered the Supreme Court precincts after working hours and raised slogans, and that the court had issued notice on a petition naming Gandhi.

A delegation of the party’s women MPs met the Speaker of the lower house over the case of a Congress MP from Manipur dismissed from his teaching post at Jawaharlal Nehru University on 9 October after an internal committee examined complaints by 11 students. The MPs demanded his expulsion from the Congress and asked why its leaders had not spoken. They have also met the President and the chairperson of the National Commission for Women this week. 

The Congress student wing protested outside a police station, saying officers had refused to register a complaint over the assault of two of its workers. The two gave first-person accounts of being beaten in custody at an appearance with Gandhi on Wednesday.