Why behave like Bhagat Singh: Delhi High Court

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Monday questioned the maintainability of a plea by two persons challenging the Delhi Assembly Speaker’s order sending them to jail for throwing pamphlets and sloganeering in the House.

A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Najmi Waziri wondered how a habeas corpus plea, as filed by the two, can be heard by it when the rules under which the decision was taken by the Speaker have not been challenged. “Why were you behaving like Bhagat Singh? Is this not a free country yet,” the Delhi high court on Monday asked the two persons who had thrown pamphlets and raised slogans in the Assembly during a session.

“What were you inviting attention to? Why were you re-creating what Bhagat Singh did,” a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Najmi Waziri asked during the hearing of the duo’s plea against Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel’s order sending them to 30 days of rigorous imprisonment for their action. The court also questioned the maintainability of their plea against the Speaker’s June 28 decision as it was a habeas corpus petition and it did not assail the rules under which they were sent to jail for “breach of privilege and contempt of the House”. A habeas corpus petition is filed to ensure a person under arrest is brought before a court which will determine whether the detention was legal or illegal. The court observed that the issue of illegal detention by the state, as alleged by the petitioners, was a “serious matter”.

Since the petitioners had not challenged the rules under which the Speaker had taken the decision, the bench gave them time till Tuesday to decide what course of action, including amending their plea, they wished to take.