People opposing CAA are not traitors and anti-nationals, rules Bombay High Court

Imposing Section 144 to prevent citizens from protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act or any other law was unlawful, ruled a division bench of the Bombay High Court. Justices TV Nalwade and MG Sewilkar also pulled up the bureaucracy for using colonial-era laws against citizens of free India.

They were hearing the petition filed by Iftekhar Zakee Shaikh, who said that permission was denied to him and others to hold a peaceful protest against the CAA on the plea that section 144 was in force.

The judges took note of the fact that no other protest or demonstration was going on in Beed and the prohibitory orders were clearly aimed to prevent the protest against CAA. The order, they observed, had prevented sloganeering, singing and playing musical instruments or beating the drum.

Citizens’ Right to agitate needed to be upheld, the court ruled. It was not for the court to go into the merits of the protest, the judges held and said in their order that if a section of people ‘believed’ a law to be unfair and biased, they had every right to agitate.

Those who oppose the CAA cannot be termed as traitors or anti-nationals, they added and said that the court was duty-bound to consider their right for peaceful protest.

The court came down heavily on the bureaucracy and observed that bureaucrats needed to be sensitised about Human Rights.

Bureaucrats exercising powers under draconian laws from pre-independence days must keep in mind, the court said, that if citizens believed a law to be affecting their rights and to be against the provisions of the Constitution, they are bound to protest and defend the Constitution.

If they are not allowed to do so, the court observed, chances of use of force would increase and that could lead to violence, chaos and disorder, which would eventually affect the unity of the nation.

The court also noted that not just Muslims but people from several other faiths have joined Muslims in protesting against the CAA.

This, they said, would indicate that the country to a great extent had achieved ‘fraternity’, which has a pride of place in the Preamble to the Constitution. Not permitting this fraternity to protest, the court felt, would affect the unity of the country.

The order follows a similar ruling against imposition of section 144 in Bengaluru by the Karnataka High Court.