The Supreme Court on Monday asked Delhi police to explain their behaviour and the need to resort to teargas and baton-charge in the closed enclosure when people were sleeping during yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s protest gathering at the Ramlila ground here in June.
An apex court bench of justice B.S. Chauhan and justice Swatanter Kumar said that there are documents and DVDs to show that the yoga exercises were undertaken at the camp, and if that was so, what was the justification for the police to resort to baton-charge.
Delhi police chief B.K. Gupta, in an affidavit to the apex court, had said that permission to use the Ramlila ground was given for a yoga camp, and not for any other purpose. The court said that it would consider Ramdev’s plea to issue notice to union home minister P. Chidambaram on the grounds that the decision to use force against him and his followers was not taken by Delhi Police on June 4 but rather it was decided much earlier at the political level.
Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Ramdev, referred to a press release issued by the home ministry and an interview by Chidambaram to Doordarshan in support of his contention that the decision to use force was taken much earlier. The court will next hear the matter July 25.