The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to stay an Allahabad High Court order which had asked the Uttar Pradesh government to take down hoardings of names and details of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protesters in Lucknow.
A vacation bench of Justices UU Lalit and Aniruddha Bose referred the plea of the state government challenging the high court order to a larger bench, saying the matter needed further elaboration and consideration.
It noted that a bench of “sufficient strength” should deal with the issue.
The court asked its registry put the case records before Chief Justice S A Bobde and said considering the urgency, the matter be placed before a larger bench in the coming week.
It granted liberty to those whose names and pictures figured in the hoardings to implead themselves in the case.
The court gave the directions after hearing Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the state, and senior advocates A M Singhvi, Colin Gonsalves and CU Singh, who opposed the UP government’s plea challenging the high court order.
On March 9, the high court directed the Yogi Adityanath government to remove all the hoardings carrying names, addresses and photos of those who were accused of violence during protests against the controversial Act in Lucknow.
The court had asked the Lucknow district magistrate to ensure that the hoardings were brought down and submit a compliance report by March 16.
A day earlier, the high court had reserved the order and pulled up the state authorities calling its act as “highly unjust”. It had termed the act as an absolute encroachment on personal liberty of individuals.
A bench comprising Justices Govind Mathur and Ramesh Sinha had said, “We hope good sense would prevail on the part of the state and it would remove the hoardings soon.”
The court had said, “So far as the legality part is concerned, suffice to state that no law is in existence that permits the State to place the banners with personal data of the accused from whom compensation is to be charged.”
The court had taken up the matter suo motu.
The state government had put up pictures of 57 accused across Lucknow, stating they are joint and severally liable to pay Rs 64,37,637 to the authorities.
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