A petition invoking public interest was lodged before the Supreme Court on Friday, calling on the bench to uphold the right of citizens to gather and demonstrate peacefully at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi as well as at venues across the country. The writ petition, brought under Article 32 of the Constitution, was filed by advocate Narendra Mishra.
Among the concerns flagged in the petition are accounts of protest permits being withheld, police barricades erected around gathering points, people taken into custody, and limits placed on public assembly. The petition linked the planned Jantar Mantar demonstrations to two connected concerns: a push for transparency from the Election Commission of India and objections raised over the Special Intensive Revision process being applied to electoral rolls.
In filing before the court, the petitioner drew on news coverage documenting how Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita — a provision that grants authorities the power to issue preventive directions under defined conditions — has been deployed in practice. At issue in the petition is whether the curbs placed around Jantar Mantar rested on adequate legal footing and bore a reasonable relationship to the circumstances on the ground.
The petition additionally cites accounts of large numbers of Delhi Police and Rapid Action Force personnel being stationed in the area, along with road barriers and the shutting down of entry and exit points at Metro stations in the vicinity. Verification of the precise details and legal grounds underpinning those measures, the document notes, would require consulting authoritative public records.
The filing advances the position that constitutional protections extend to both free expression and peaceful assembly, each subject to lawful limitations deemed reasonable under existing legal frameworks. The petition contends that any restrictions placed on individual freedoms are grounded in demonstrable justification and kept within the boundaries that maintaining public order genuinely demands.
Concerns about how both the Election Commission and the SIR process are operating also feature in the petition. Among the concerns raised are questions about whether collective decision-making was consistently followed on certain occasions, along with reported amendments to Form 6 and the way applications connected to electoral rolls were handled. Formal documentation was requested by the petitioner to verify the accuracy of those assertions.
The petition calls on the Supreme Court to obtain documentation from the Delhi government, Delhi Police, and other relevant bodies detailing the directives issued under Section 163 of the BNSS along with the justifications underlying each of them. Among the materials whose preservation is being requested are CCTV footage, body-camera recordings, police deployment records, wireless communications, and detention registers tied to the incidents under review.
A nationwide framework of protections governing the conduct of peaceful demonstrations is what the petitioner has asked the judiciary to establish. Among the provisions outlined are the obligation to state grounds when withholding authorisation, keeping any imposed constraints bounded in both time and geography, avoiding undue application of force, and upholding the rights of those taken into custody at protest events.
Court oversight of the concerns raised in the petition is being sought, along with a ruling that any curbs placed on peaceful gatherings align with constitutional and statutory obligations. No court findings have been made on the claims and matters contained in the petition.
