Court allows senior citizens to play musical instruments at Deer Park

The Delhi High Court in an interim order on Thursday allowed a group of senior citizens to play musical instruments along with yoga at their assembly at an earmarked place called “Old Age Corner Shed” at Deer Park in Safdarjung Enclave in South Delhi.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice A. K. Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw passed the direction on a petition by Senior Citizen Council of Delhi submitting that the Delhi Development Authority, which takes care of the park, had restrained them from playing the instruments — table and harmonium — in the park saying that it disturbed the peace of the residents around it.

DDA to remove lock

The Bench also allowed the participants in the assembly to use the store room in the park to keep their musical instruments under the lock and keys of the Authority.

“The lock shall be removed by the DDA staff in the morning to enable these persons to take out their mats, harmonium, tabla, etc., for use by them at the time of yoga, satsang, etc., and thereafter they would be allowed to keep back the said goods in the said store room which then can be locked by the staff of the DDA,” the Bench said in its interim order.

Prior restriction

While restraining them from playing the musical instruments, the Authority had locked the store room where the elderly persons kept the instruments.

The petitioner submitted that the elderly persons had been organising the assembly for the past several years and on an average 500 people participated in it every day.

The Authority had acted against them on complaints of noise pollution due to playing of musical instruments.

The Bench said that it would pass a final order on the petition later.

Earlier this year, the Authority had stopped power supply to the shed. It had later restored it on a direction by the Court on a petition by the Council submitting that the Authority had disconnected power supply to the shed arbitrarily.