Nothing explosive in reports: SC

The Karkardooma Bar Association also moved for impleading itself as a party on the ground that lawyers were being victimised and termed as goons and criminals.

February 22, 2016 03:55 pm | Updated December 03, 2021 12:46 pm IST - New Delhi

The Supreme Court said on Monday that there was “nothing explosive” in the reports filed separately in sealed covers by the Delhi Police, the Registrar General of Delhi High Court and its own team of lawyers who visited the Patiala House courts to take stock of the mob violence of February 17. All they contained were “allegations and counter-allegations.”

The police and the Delhi High Court seemed to agree in their reports that the JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was not assaulted inside the courtroom as mentioned by the lawyers’ team. According to the lawyers’ team, Kumar was “thumped” by a “gentleman in dark glasses” inside the courtroom in the presence of senior police officers and the Registrar General of the High Court.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, who was in the six-member lawyers’ team sent by the Supreme Court, told a Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre that the police did not intervene despite the Registrar General asking them to.

Police disagree

Mr. Dhawan, who admitted that the lawyers’ team was not witness to this incident, said it happened despite strict orders from the Supreme Court to restrict entry and exit into the court complex.

However, Delhi Police counsel and senior advocate Ajit Sinha did not agree completely with the report of the lawyers’ team and refused to sign it. Instead, he separately filed a one-page report in the Supreme Court.

All the reports were filed in sealed covers and the Bench ordered that they could be distributed in the next three days from the apex court registry.

During the hearing, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar asked the court for an assurance that the reports, if released to the media, would not “influence” the Delhi High Court’s hearing of Kanhaiya Kumar’s bail application on February 23.

Plea disallowed

The Bench refused to entertain a petition filed by the Karkardooma Bar Association alleging that “cultural celebration” organised by the JNU students was in actuality an occasion to condemn the Supreme Court judgment to execute Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru as a “judicial killing.”

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