Observing that public roads are ordinarily not meant for agitations, the High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday declined to quash criminal case registered in 2022 against Congress leaders, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and four others for causing disturbance to public, movement of vehicles and maintenance of law and order by suddenly resorting to dharna/protest on public road.
Also, the court imposed a cost of ₹10,000 each for making a woman police sub-inspector Jahida as a respondent to their petitions in her personal capacity even though she had lodged the complaint against them in her official capacity.
Asked to appear
The court also directed Mr. Siddaramaiah, Ministers Ramalinga Reddy and M.B. Patil, Rajya Sabha member Randeep Singh Surjewala, and Member of the Karnataka Legislative Council Saleem Ahmed to personally appear before the Special Court of Magistrate set up for the trial of cases against MPs/MLAs/MLCs in Karnataka, in response to the summons issued to them and seek discharge as the matter requires consideration of facts by the trial court.
The petitioner-political leaders had questioned the criminal case registered against them by the High Grounds police in the city on April 14, 2022, for resorting to protest on Race Course Road. They had also questioned the charge sheet filed against them under Section Section 143 (Unlawful assembly) and Section 143 (penalty for contravention of orders issued by the police) of the Karnataka Police Act.
The petitioners, along with a group of 35-40 persons, had resorted to protest in a bid to lay siege to the then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommmai’s residence seeking resignation of then Minister K.S. Eshwarappa of the BJP. Apart from five petitioners, the case was registered against 31 orders, including the present Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and others.
Refusing to accept petitioners’ claim that the allegation that they had obstructed free flow of traffic on the public road, and disturbed the law & order, was absolutely false and was politically motivated, the High Court said that the petitioners have not produced any material in this regard, and this disputed facts can be adjudged by the trial court, if at all the case against them travels to the stage of trial.
“The proponents of agitational rights claim right to political protest as a right to freedom of expression and assembly. However, exercising such a form of freedom can prove costly for society. Agitations hinder the regular movement of ordinary people,” the court observed while declining claim of the petitioners that case registered against them affected their freedom of expression.
“Public roads, streets and parks do exist primarily for the benefit of people at large,” the court observed while pointing out that use of roads for agitation is also a hard truth. “In a democracy, strikes and agitations, if are to be held ‘Far From The Maddening Crowd’, (to use the title of Thomas Hardy’s book) that is to say only on hilltops, in the middle of forests or on the sea-shores, their purpose would largely remain unachieved. It would be more like a great business sans advertisement,” the court observed.
Because they are Ministers
Noticing that none of the petitioners has so far appeared before the special court despite issuance of summons on several occasions, the court agreed with the argument of the prosecution that “merely because the petitioners happen to be Ministers/elected representatives of the people, they should not be permitted to land in this court by invoking constitutional jurisdiction...” when other litigants in similar cases were relegated to the trial courts.
