Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court refused to allow Hindu Sewa Dal to conduct a rally on Red Road in Central Kolkata on April 12 on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti. First, a single-judge bench and then a division bench decided so on Friday, IANS reported.
However, the same single bench of the high court allowed the BJP leader in the state and Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, to conduct a rally on the day but under strict restrictions.
Hindu Sewa Dal earlier approached the single-judge bench of Justice Tirthaknkar Ghosh for permission to attend the rally. The matter came up for hearing on Friday, and Justice Ghosh questioned why the petitioner was insisting on Red Road as the venue of the rally. The counsel of the petitioner argued that if permission can be granted for Namaz of Eid at Red Road every year, the same permission can be granted for the Hanuman Jayanti rally.
However, Justice Ghosh refused to buy that logic. He observed that the Namaz of Eid at Red Road has been performed for about 100 years. But Justice Ghosh observed that there is no such precedence for the Hanuman Jayanti rally at Red Road.
Thereafter, the single-judge bench declined permission to hold the Hanuman Jayanti rally at Red Road.
The petitioner immediately approached the Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chattopadhyay, challenging the single-judge bench order. However, the division bench too declined to permit the Hanuman Jayanti rally at Red Road. Instead, the division bench suggested two alternative venues that are quite near the Red Road.
Only on Thursday, the same single-judge bench of Justice Ghosh had granted permission to the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, to conduct a rally through a particular route in North Kolkata on April 12 on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti.
However, Justice Ghosh imposed a number of conditions for conducting the rally scheduled on a route in North Kolkata, which is supposed to end at the temple of Lord Hanuman. Possession must strictly adhere to noise regulations and public safety norms. The use of DJs or any form of high-decibel sound systems has been expressly prohibited, and participants are barred from carrying metal weapons or any object that could incite tension. The event must take place between 5 pm and 8 pm, and the number of attendees must not be more than 250.
The Leader of the Opposition approached Justice Ghosh’s bench after the Kolkata Police denied permission to conduct the rally.