Shaheen Bagh interlocutor Habibullah says will do best to ensure justice is done

By Naz Asghar

Feb 18, 2020

New Delhi: Former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, one of the three interlocutors appointed by the Supreme Court to engage with Shaheen Bagh protesters, has said that he would try his best to ensure that justice is done to all, both protesters and the public.

Referring to the apex court’s observation that the right to protest is a fundamental right, Mr Habibullah said:” I will work towards a solution in which the protesters’s right are not violated and also that the public is not inconvenienced.”

Asked how he proposes to about the business, he said he will first have to talk to the other two interlocutors and then work out the modalities.

The other two members of the team are senior advocate Sanjay Hegde along and advocate Sadhana Ramachandran.

Habibullah has, along with Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar Azad, filed an intervention application on the matter of the Shaheen Bagh road blockade by protestors agitating against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed NRC.

An apex court bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and comprising Justice K.M. Joseph yesterday said the right to protest is a fundamental right, but it is troubling to see protesters blocking the road at Shaheen Bagh, as it may set a bad precedent and impel action by other groups to do similar acts resulting in chaos, and suggested that the protest may shift to an alternate venue.

The Government and the ruling BJP has been branding the agitation as ”anti-national” and ”anarchist”, and a ”conspiracy of the Opposition parties”, but the Shaheen Bagh protesters have termed these allegations as nothing but ”lies”, and asserted that theirs was a spontaneous people’s movement to safeguard their fundamental rights and their existence as Indian citizens, and branding a protest against some particular law was an undemocratic act.

–India News Stream