Maharashtra, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court seeking its nod to quash criminal cases registered in connection with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led protests in July, joining the Centre’s move to end the criminal proceedings arising from the agitation.
The group has announced the march to protest what it describes as the Centre’s failure to honour assurances that led to the withdrawal of its agitation in July. The development comes a day after the Centre moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of 13 FIRs registered in connection with the CJP-led protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and other parts of the capital between July 20 and 25. The Centre has said no further FIR would be registered in connection with the incidents covered by its application and invoked the Supreme Court’s extraordinary powers under Article 142 to seek quashing of the 13 cases. The Centre’s application filed on Monday had sought to resolve the issue in Delhi by asking the Supreme Court to quash 13 FIRs and permit one fresh case against 2,873 persons whose antecedents, according to the police, require scrutiny. The developments come days before the CJP’s proposed September 5 protest march from India Gate to the Delhi Police headquarters. The Supreme Court has constituted a five-member high-powered enquiry committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice R Subhash Reddy to conduct an independent inquiry into the competing allegations arising from the July 20 protest.
The Centre, through the Delhi Police, has also proposed registration of one fresh FIR against 2,873 persons who were prima facie reported to have “serious criminal antecedents”, with their individual roles to be investigated. The police, however, said that 2,873 individuals with “serious criminal antecedents”, according to the National Crime Records Bureau database, were prima facie reported to have been present at the protest site and that their role, if any, in offences involving bodily harm or destruction of property needed to be investigated. The proposed fresh FIR would be confined to determining the individual roles of these persons, the Centre said.
The clarification came after the Supreme Court permitted the NCT of Delhi and other states to proceed with investigation of FIRs registered in connection with the protests, while restraining authorities from taking coercive action against protesting students who did not have criminal antecedents.
