Summary
The Supreme Court required regulated opportunities for peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar and in the sensitive Boat Club area, balancing expression and assembly against residents’ health, access and peaceful living. The NGT correctly identified serious local harms, but an outright ban was not the appropriate solution. Repeated police orders permitting no demonstrations in practice likewise operated as a ban. Police were directed to frame separate regulatory guidelines within two months.
Issues
- How peaceful-protest rights should be balanced against residents’ fundamental rights and security requirements.
- Whether the NGT ban and the practical operation of repeated prohibitory police orders required a regulatory alternative.
Provisions considered
- Articles 19(1)(a), 19(1)(b), 19(2), 19(3) and 21, Constitution of IndiaBalanced peaceful expression and assembly, subject to lawful reasonable restrictions, against residents’ rights to health and peaceful living. Neither set of rights could be extinguished in the name of balancing. (¶¶ 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64)
- Section 144, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973Recognised emergency preventive powers and the apprehension-of-breach-of-peace test, while finding that repeated permission-based orders had in practice become a prohibition on all demonstrations and required genuine regulation. (¶¶ 16, 22, 28, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70)
Held
- Peaceful protest enables legitimate dissent and democratic participation. It is protected by speech and assembly guarantees, subject to reasonable restrictions. The State must facilitate lawful exercise rather than arbitrarily exclude it; no person nevertheless has an absolute entitlement to protest at one chosen location. (¶¶ 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 64)
- The NGT’s findings of serious noise, sanitation, access and health harms at Jantar Mantar were accepted. The solution required regulation to protect residents while preserving limited protest opportunities; total extinction of one side’s right was not balancing. (¶¶ 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64)
- For Jantar Mantar, the Police Commissioner, consulting concerned agencies, was to devise a mechanism and detailed guidelines within two months for limited, regulated use without disturbance to residents or offices. A prior-permission system and objective permission parameters could form part of that mechanism. (¶¶ 62, 63, 64, 65)
- In the Boat Club area, the orders’ permission-based wording was not facially an absolute ban, and security sensitivities and intelligence inputs were relevant. But no demonstrations were actually permitted, so continuous renewal produced a practical ban rather than regulation. (¶¶ 66, 67, 68, 69)
- The Commissioner was separately directed to frame Boat Club guidelines within two months in consultation with other authorities. Suggested parameters included participant numbers, sensitive-site distances and routes, dignitary visits, weapons, animals, tents and overnight stays, time limits and peak traffic. These were examples for framing a restrictive but workable permission system, not an unrestricted right of access. (¶¶ 70, 71)
Result
Writ petition and connected appeals disposed of with directions to formulate Jantar Mantar and Boat Club regulatory guidelines within two months.