Jantar Mantar protest ban

TT, New Delhi, Oct. 5: An environment court today directed the Delhi government to stop people assembling at Jantar Mantar, the capital's protest hub, and provide an alternative agitation site 4km away at the Ramleela Maidan.

The National Green Tribunal bench, headed by Justice R.S. Rathore, told the civic authorities to remove all the temporary structures and public address systems from the Jantar Mantar site.

It said the congregations violated environmental and air pollution laws and denied residents their right to live peacefully. The ruling came on a two-year-old petition by a local man, Varun Seth, alleging noise pollution from the protests.

"The locality has completely changed, where one finds that men, women and children are bathing, washing their clothes under Delhi Jal Board tankers.... People are seen defecating in the open, on pavements," the bench said.

"(The order) will be implemented if feasible. If not, we'll go back to court," Saurabh Bharadwaj of Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party told The Telegraph.

"Pollution will also happen at Ramleela Maidan. Protest is a democratic right and Jantar Mantar has historical significance, " Bharadwaj added.

The CPI vowed to battle the ruling while a disappointed Congress said it would decide after seeing the order.

Jantar Mantar has drawn protesters from across the country, including farmers from Tamil Nadu. It hosted Anna Hazare's 2011 anti-corruption fast that helped oust the UPA government._The capital's protest zone had been the Boat Club area along Rajpath, within sight of Rashtrapati Bhavan, till 1993 when the BJP tried to lay siege to Parliament after the Babri Masjid was demolished.

Jantar Mantar became the agitation hub after that, although demonstrators against the 2012 bus gang rape had violated prohibitory orders and protested at the Boat Club, breaking barricades to reach Raisina Hill.

"We'll oppose (the ruling) tooth and nail," CPI general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy said.

"Demonstrations are a part of democracy. We were earlier moved from the Boat Club because of security reasons. Now Jantar Mantar and, consequently, Parliament Street being put out of bounds is a great injustice."

Delhi Congress spokesperson Sharmistha Mukherjee said: "Citizens have a right to protest in the vicinity of Parliament and the court should consider this. The (Narendra) Modi government does not want any dissent and did not present its case properly. We will decide our future course of action after seeing the order."

The New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi police, who were respondents, report to the Centre.

P. Ayyakannu, who is leading the Tamil Nadu farmers' protest, was unaware of the ruling. "So far, no one has told us anything. We have built no permanent shelter; nor do we have loudspeakers," he said.

Many trade unions hold large annual rallies that turn Jantar Mantar and the neighbouring Sansad Marg red with flags. Most of the protesters eat at the free _langar _of the nearby Gurdwara Bangla Sahib.

Marches, especially when Parliament is in session, often start at the drama hub of Mandi House and end in Jantar Mantar.

Over the past two years, the site has seen the Reclaim Democracy march, followed by the meetings against the growing intolerance and Rohith Vemula's suicide and the large rallies demanding the release of JNU students arrested on sedition charges.

It witnessed this year's massive Bhim Army gathering that Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad emerged from underground to address.

"This is an attack on democratic rights," said Ovais Khan, one of the organisers of the Not In My Name protest that was held after the lynching of a Muslim boy on a train from Delhi to Haryana.

"If the court is doing this to protect the right to life, I ask how this right can be sustained without the democratic right to protest near the centre of power," he said.

"Even protests for the environment happen here. From Ramleela Maidan, how will citizens make their grievances heard to the rulers sitting far away?"