‘Political dissent, not organised crime’: Court grants bail to IYC protesters
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Sunday granted bail to nine Indian Youth Congress (IYC) members who were arrested for protesting during the India AI Impact Summit last month, observing that their actions amounted to “political dissent” and not organised crime, Bra and Bench reported.
Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Ravi of the Patiala House Court granted bail to Krishna Hari, Narshimha Yadav, Kundan Kumar Yadav, Ajay Kumar Singh, Jitendra Singh Yadav, Raja Gurjar, Ajay Kumar Vimal alias Bantu, Saurabh Singh and Arbaz Khan.
“The protest, at highest, constituted symbolic political critique during a public event: T-shirts with leadership imagery, non-inciteful slogans bereft of communal or regional taint, and transient assembly. No evidence discloses property defacement or delegate panic; exit was orderly via escort,” said the court.
The court further held that prolonged pre-trial detention without investigative necessity violates the right to liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Earlier, the prosecution had argued that the protests by the IYC members posed a threat to national security, international relations and national integrity by disrupting a high-profile global event.
However, the court said that none of the offences invoked against the accused carried a maximum punishment exceeding seven years. It also rejected the police’s argument that the sentence may run consecutively.
The court termed the police’s argument “bereft of jurisprudential moorings at this interlocutory bail juncture, where the judicial gaze is riveted not on the mirage of potential conviction but on the stark realities of pre-trial liberty”.
“Pre-trial detention, severed from any imperative necessity and devoid of persisting investigative demands, ineluctably devolves into an illicit pre-emptive punishment antecedent to conviction, a profound aberration fundamentally at odds with the bedrock axioms of criminal jurisprudence, which exalt liberty as the governing norm and incarceration as the narrowly circumscribed exception,” said the court, as reported by Bra and Bench.
The IYC members had staged a shirtless protest during the India AI Impact Summit on February 20. Some of the protesters wore T-shirts with slogans that read “PM is compromised”.
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'I go to Parliament to create impact, not ruckus': Raghav Chadha rubbishes AAP's allegations
New Delhi (PTI): "I go to Parliament to create impact, not ruckus," said Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Saturday as he rejected allegations levelled against him by the Aam Aadmi Party, calling them "false" and part of a "coordinated campaign".
In a video, Chadha dismissed claims that he did not join opposition walkouts, terming the charge a "blatant lie".
He challenged his detractors to cite even a single instance where he failed to participate and said parliamentary proceedings are recorded through CCTV cameras.
Refuting another allegation that he refused to sign a motion related to the Chief Election Commissioner, Chadha said no party leader had asked him, either formally or informally, to sign it. He added that several other MPs from his party had also not signed the motion.
The MP said his focus in Parliament has been on raising public issues such as GST, income tax, air pollution in Delhi, water concerns in Punjab, public healthcare, education, railway passenger issues, menstrual health, unemployment and inflation.
Chadha said that he goes to Parliament to "create impact not ruckus" as it runs on taxpayers' money and it is his responsibility to highlight their concerns. "Every lie will be exposed," he said.
