High Court turns down plea for Hanuman Jayanti rally at Kolkata's Red Road

Kolkata, April 12 (IANS) First a single-judge bench and then a division bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Friday, turned down the plea by a group, Hindu Sewa Dal, to conduct a rally on Red Road in Central Kolkata on April 12 on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti.

The group earlier approached the single-judge bench of Justice Tirthaknkar Ghosh for permission for the rally. The matter came up for hearing on Friday and Justice Ghosh questioned why the petitioner was insisting on Red Road as the venue of the rally. The counsel of the petitioner argued that if permission can be granted for Namaz of Eid at Red Road every year, the same permission can be granted for the Hanuman Jayanti rally.

However, Justice Ghosh refused to buy that logic. He observed that the Namaz of Eid at Red Road has been performed for about 100 years. But there is no such precedence of Hanuman Jayanti rally at Red Road, Justice Ghosh observed.

Thereafter, the single-judge bench declined the permission for the Hanuman Jayanti rally at Red Road.

The petitioner immediately approached the Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chattopadhyay, challenging the single-judge bench order. However, the division bench too declined to permit the Hanuman Jayanti rally at Red Road. Instead, the division bench suggested two alternative venues that are quite near the Red Road.

Only on Thursday, the same single-judge bench of Justice Ghosh had granted permission to the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, to conduct a rally through a particular route in North Kolkata on April 12 on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti.

However, Justice Ghosh imposed a number of conditions for conducting the rally scheduled on a route in North Kolkata and is supposed to end at a temple of Lord Hanuman.

The Leader of the Opposition approached Justice Ghosh’s bench after the Kolkata Police denied permission to conduct the rally.

--IANS

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