The Delhi High Court said it will hear a petition on Tuesday alleging that protesters at the student stir led by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) were subjected to police surveillance.
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This was after Centre’s lawyer additional solicitor general Chetan Sharma said that the petition had now become infructuous. “It’s over. It’s no longer continuous,” the law officer said.
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Observing that “Things have cooled down, let them cool down further,” during a hearing on Monday, it suggested a comprehensive petition seeking guidelines for such police surveillance practices be filed.
A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyaya and Tejas Karia observed that such a petition would enable them to examine the existing framework governing police surveillance and assess whether the provisions in place are adequate or require further scrutiny.
The bench also noted that the present petition was confined to a specific aspect of the issue.
“Better file a petition where we can examine what provisions are there in place. If they are adequate, not adequate. This petition as we understand was confined to a particular aspect. Things have cooled down, let them cool down further,” the bench said.
The court made these remarks in a petition filed by former JNU Students’ Union president Aishe Ghose challenging the alleged continuous surveillance of protesters.
However, Aishe’s lawyer Nandita Rao continued pressing for the petition saying that some of the reliefs that her client was seeking in the petition included directions to the police to disclose the strict legal authority, specific security threat assessments, purpose, scope, retention policy, and data-sharing protocols governing the data collected through the measures.
Considering the contention, the court said that it would hear the matter on Tuesday.
In her petition, Ghosh had submitted that, since June 20, protesters demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union education minister over alleged irregularities in the examination system were being subjected to continuous photography, videography and round-the-clock monitoring through a permanent surveillance tower installed at the protest site. The protest was called off on Saturday after Pradhan resigned and the other demands of the protesters were accepted by the central government.
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Earlier, Delhi Police had opposed issuance of notice in petition contending that videography is a standard law enforcement practice carried out at all protests held at the venue to maintain public order and is not being undertaken exclusively for the CJP demonstration.
