The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice on a batch of petitions alleging excessive use of force by the Delhi Police against protesters demonstrating over the NEET examination issue and directed the authorities to preserve all records relating to the incident, including CCTV footage and records maintained in accordance with the applicable Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). The matter was heard by a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia.

Senior Advocates Vikas Singh, P. Hariharan and Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that the protest at Jantar Mantar had remained peaceful and that the demonstrators were exercising their fundamental rights under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution. They argued that the police resorted to disproportionate force without following the procedure prescribed under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) or the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in the Ramlila Maidan judgment governing crowd control and dispersal of assemblies.

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The petitioners sought an independent probe into the incident, contending that video recordings showed police personnel, including some in plain clothes, assaulting protesters. They also requested directions for preservation of CCTV footage, body-camera recordings, PCR logs, wireless communications, deployment orders, and other official records to ensure that crucial evidence was not destroyed.

Appearing for the Union of India and the Delhi Police, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju opposed the petitions, arguing that they were primarily based on social media videos and that the material also showed police personnel sustaining injuries and the crowd turning unruly. He submitted that persons alleging cognizable offences had statutory remedies under the BNSS and questioned the maintainability of the public interest petitions.

During the hearing, the Bench observed that where allegations pertain to widespread police action during a public protest, the issue cannot be viewed merely as isolated individual grievances. It also remarked that even if an assembly is ultimately found to be unlawful, there exists a prescribed legal procedure regulating the manner in which force may be used to disperse it.

The Court accordingly issued notice, granted time to the respondents to file their replies, and directed that all records relating to the incident, including CCTV footage and records required to be maintained under the applicable SOP, be preserved until further orders.