The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its order on the Delhi Police crackdown on yoga guru Baba Ramdev and his supporters at Ramlila ground last year, and asked police to immediately arrange the viewing of the CCTV camera footage and the CD on the episode.
The apex court bench of Justice BS Chauhan and Justice Swatanter Kumar reserved the verdict on the conclusion of arguments by senior counsel Ram Jethmalani who reiterated that imposition of Section 144 (prohibiting gathering of more than five people at one place) was not as per the requirements of the law.
The senior counsel told the court that no allegations were made against Ramdev and his followers in the order imposing prohibitory order at the Ramlila ground.
He told the court that Ramdev was not given any direction by the police to ask his supporters to vacate the Ramlila ground on the intervening night of June 4/5 last year.
Jethmalani told the court that even if police had asked the organisers to vacate the ground, they could not have asked people sleeping in the tent to wake up and go in the dead of night.
The court was told that the letter on the basis of which intelligence inputs were given to Delhi Police and on the basis of which police acted was not in possession of the police on June 3, 2011, and they got it only on June 6.
While reserving its verdict, the court pulled up Delhi Police for not making arrangements for their viewing of the footage of the CCTV cameras installed at the venue of Baba Ramdev’s agitation at Ramlila ground and the CD provided by the yoga guru’s trust.
The court directed the police to make the arrangements immediately for viewing the CCTV footage and the CD and inform the court.
