The Delhi High Court on Tuesday slammed the Centre’s Narendra Modi government for arresting the anti-CAA protesters under charges of terrorism saying that this was an attempt to suppress dissent. The court made scathing observations against the Centre while granting bail to Asif Iqbal Tanha, Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita.
All three were arrested in May 2020 under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The bail pleas were rejected by a trial court. The court, according to Livelaw, rejected the repeated submissions by the State that this “was not a typical protest but an aggravated protest which was intended to disrupt the life of the community in Delhi.”
The court said, “We are constrained to express, that it seems, that in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the State, the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred.”
It said, "We find ourselves unpersuaded and unconvinced with this submission since we find it is not founded on any specific factual allegation and we are of the view that the mere use of alarming and hyperbolic verbiage in the subject charge-sheetwill not convince us otherwise."
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) June 15, 2021
The Delhi High Court bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani added, “We find ourselves unpersuaded and unconvinced with this submission since we find it is not founded on any specific factual allegation and we are of the view that the mere use of alarming and hyperbolic verbiage in the subject charge-sheet will not convince us otherwise.”