Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 20: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear the Andhra Pradesh government’s appeal of a High Court decision staying a Government Order (GO) preventing the police from issuing permission for public gatherings and demonstrations unless sufficient and extraordinary justifications were given.
On January 23, Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court Prashant Kumar Mishra was ordered by a Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha to personally investigate the situation.
We are not enquiring into the merits of the vacation bench order. We request the High Court Division Bench to take up the writ appeal and hear it on January 23. All rights and contentions of parties are kept open.”
CJI Chandrachud stated at the hearing that the Supreme Court would not get involved at this time because the case has been referred to the High Court.
We will ask the Chief Justice of High Court to look into it personally,” he added.
The State administration filed a special leave petition with the court in opposition to an interim injunction issued by the High Court on January 12.
Because it appeared to be in violation of the process outlined in Section 30 of the Police Act, a vacation bench of the High Court suspended the implementation of a GO dated January 2.
The State said that the decision telling the Andhra Pradesh Police Department to stop giving licences for such public gatherings was urgently needed since it had had a large number of fatalities brought on by political rallies and roadshows.
The argument went on to say that the matter shouldn’t have been brought before the vacation bench because it was made very clear in the High Court’s notification dated January 5, 2023 regarding the listing of cases before the vacation bench that ‘no policy and administrative matters shall be taken up during vacation.’
Furthermore, the GO is a regulation document, making it obvious that it is an administrative and policy issue. Therefore, the State said, any decision made by a vacation bench on the GO, let alone one that suspends its implementation, lacks jurisdiction because it was made by a coram non judice.
