Top court refuses to stay UP poster order
CAA PROTESTERS Says there is no law to support the state’s action of putting up hoardings
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday referred to a threejudge bench a plea filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against an Allahabad high court order directing the administration to immediately remove hoardings containing the names, photos and addresses of those who purportedly took part in the Lucknow protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, in December.
A vacation bench of justices UU Lalit and Aniruddha Bose didn’t, however, stay the order of the high court, which ruled that the state’s action of putting up banners with personal details of protestors amounted to infringement of the individuals’ privacy.
“An individual can do anything not prohibited by law, but a state can do only what law empowers it to. In this case, is there a law?” justice Bose asked the UP government.
A state government official said the administration was seeking legal opinion.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday referred to a larger bench a plea filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against an Allahabad high court order directing the administration to immediately remove hoardings containing the names, photos and addresses of those who purportedly took part in the Lucknow protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, in December.
A vacation bench comprising justices UU Lalit and Aniruddha Bose didn’t stay the high court order passed on Monday, but said the matter involves issues that require consideration by a larger bench of at least three judges.
“Let papers [of the case] be placed before the Chief Justice of India so that a bench of sufficient strength [can] be constituted to hear and decide the matter in the coming week,” the bench said.
The court, during the hearing on Thursday, remarked that there was no law based on which the state government’s action of putting up the contentious hoardings can be justified.
“An individual can do anything not prohibited by law, but a state can do only what law empowers it to. In this case, is there a law?” justice Bose asked solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the UP government.
The apex court said individuals whose names and other details appeared on the hoardings were at liberty to ask to be made a party to the case pending before the apex court.
A state government official said on condition of anonymity that the state government would take appropriate action on the matter and was seeking legal opinion before making its stand public.
The high court bench of chief justice Govind Mathur and justice Ramesh Sinha had on Monday ruled that the state government’s action of putting up banners at various places in the state capital of Lucknow with personal details of alleged anticaa protestors amounted to infringement of the individuals’ privacy.
Privacy is an intrinsic part of right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution and the actions of the state government amount to an unwarranted interference, it said, directing the district magistrate, Lucknow, and the commissioner of police, Lucknow, to remove the banners immediately and submit a compliance report to the court on or before March 16.
SG Mehta refuted this aspect of the high court order, stating that when people engage in violence in public, they automatically waive their right to privacy. He said that the August 2017 Supreme Court judgment of K Puttaswamy, which declared privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution, squarely covered this issue regarding waiver of right to privacy.
“In this case, an order was passed against 57 people who were held to be responsible and involved in rioting [in Uttar Pradesh]. They were heard and ordered to pay compensation. If people wield guns in public, they waive their right to privacy,” the SG said, referring to orders passed by the UP government seeking recovery of compensation from the protestors for damage to public and private property.
He also cited the 1994 SC judgment in the R Rajagopal vs. State of Tamil Nadu case, in which the apex court had ruled that once a matter becomes a part of public record, the right to privacy no longer exists.
“Once a person is captured on tape showing him indulging in violence, the person cannot claim right to privacy”, the SG argued.
The SC bench, however, remarked that the issue under consideration was different.
“If you are videographed, you have put yourself in public gaze. But here, we are on a slightly different issue. We are on whether the state can put out faces in the public domain and presume them guilty for all time to come,” justice Lalit remarked.
Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer SR Darapuri who was one of the persons “named and shamed” on the posters, said that the UP government’s action had no legal backing and would only provoke and incite people to take the law into their own hands.
“It will create lynch mentality. Suppose we put out a photograph of an alleged child rapist, he is likely to be lynched if he walks on the street after getting bail. The state has to show a law under which such action can be taken,” Singhvi said.
The senior counsel also disputed the SG’S claim that the Puttaswamy judgment laid down a waiver of privacy if a person puts out his details in the public domain.
The Supreme Court opined that the matter is required to be considered by a larger bench in the light of the law cited by the SG in Puttaswamy and R Rajagopal judgments.
On March 5, the UP government put up several hoardings across Lucknow, identifying those accused of violence during the anti-caa protests that took place last December. The accused were also asked to pay for the damage to public and private properties within a stipulated time or have their assets seized by the district administration.
On March 7, the HC registered a suo motu (on its own) public interest litigation (PIL) on the matter.
The court pulled up the UP government on the following day for putting up these hoardings and termed it an “insult of the State and its public,” “highly unjust”’ and an “encroachment” on the personal liberty of the individuals.
Advocate general Raghvendra Pratap Singh, who appeared on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government, argued that the court should not interfere in such matters by taking suo moto cognizance.
The high court, however, did not take state’s argument questioning its jurisdiction favourably.
In its order passed on Monday, it said that “courts are meant to impart justice and no court can shut its eyes if a public unjust is happening just before it”.