Keeping aside a petition on the forcible eviction of yoga guru Baba Ramdev from Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds here in the early hours Sunday, the Supreme Court on Monday rather took “suo motu” cognisance of the government’s post-midnight swoop on thousands of resting and sleeping people and issued notices to the Centre and the Delhi government on the alleged “brutalities” by the police in the eviction process.
Though a public interest litigation petition was filed by an advocate on the issue, a vacation bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar preferred to rely more on reports published in the newspapers on the incident and took them on record to register a “suo motu” PIL and issued notices to Union home secretary G.K. Pillai, the Delhi administration under the control of the lieutenant-governor, Delhi chief secretary P.K. Tripathi and city police commissioner B.K. Gupta.
All of them have been given two weeks’ time to submit affidavits explaining the reasons for the midnight crackdown on people, including women and children, who were sleeping peacefully at the Ramlila Grounds where Baba Ramdev was holding his protest fast over his demands on corruption-related issues, including bringing black money held overseas back to the country.
While posting the matter for detailed hearing after the court’s ongoing summer vacation in the second week of July, the bench directed all respondents to specify in their replies as to “what circumstances” had emerged for the sudden and “forceful eviction” of people from the venue in the night of June 4-5 when they were peacefully “resting and sleeping” there.
However, during a brief hearing, the bench kept aside the PIL filed by advocate Ajay Aggrawal, taking exception to the “leaking” of its entire contents to the media even before the court had heard the matter.
As the bench assembled for the day’s hearing, Mr Aggrawal got up to mention his PIL for urgent hearing but the court took refused to take cognisance of his petition, and instead told him it was ordering registration of a “suo motu” petition on the basis of news reports on the incident.
The bench appeared displeased over the fact that reports were published in newspapers that the Supreme Court had listed the matter for hearing at 10.30 am on Monday, which was factually incorrect as the matter was not listed but Mr Aggrawal was only given liberty by the court’s registry to mention his petition.
“We are shocked to learn that before the file reaches us, the contents (of the PIL) have been published in great detail. It has also been reported that the matter has been listed for hearing today at 10.30 am. Why it is so?” the bench asked Mr Aggrawal.
As he could not give a satisfactory explanation, the bench said though the court was concerned about what had happened at the Ramlila Grounds, “we are not inclined to entertain this petition and are taking suo motu notice of the matter.”
In his petition, Mr Aggrawal had named Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P. Chidamabaram, HRD minister Kapil Sibal, tourism minister Subodh Kant Sahay and parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal as respondents, in addition to the Union home secretary, the director of the Intelligence Bureau and the Delhi police commissioner.