Supreme Court defers Shaheen Bagh hearing, says 'environment not conducive'
New Delhi/IBNS: Citing the tensed atmosphere in the national capital over the Delhi violence, the Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred the hearing on the Shaheen Bagh case till Mar 23, media reports said.
The top court was about to hear the Public Interest Litigations (PILs) against the camping of several women and men at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh to protest against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which aims to provide citizenship to the Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi but not Muslim refugees who came to India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh due to religious persecution before 2015.
"Environment isn't very conducive to hear Shaheen Bagh protests case. Sanity has to be maintained by everyone when a matter is to be heard," a bench comprising Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph said.
The top court has already appointed senior advocates, Sanjay Hegde and Sadhna Ramachandran, as the mediators whose job was to convince the Shaheen Bagh protestors to shift their agitation to some other place instead of blocking a road.
The two mediators had also submitted a report in a sealed envelop to the court.
The Supreme Court had earlier said, "We are not saying that people don’t have the right to raise their concerns. The question is where to protest? Because if this continues on the roads today for this legislation, tomorrow it could be done for another legislation."
The north-east Delhi was on boil for the last two days, when US President Donald Trump was incidentally in the national capital, over a fight between the supporters and protestors of CAA which has already kept the country on edge for over last two months.
20 people have been killed while 189 others injured in the violence.
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