Anti-CAA activist Gayatri Khandhadai on Tuesday filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court, questioning the rationale behind the Greater Chennai Commissioner of Police passing an order every 15 days under Section 41 of the Tamil Nadu City Police Act of 1888, prohibiting all assemblies, processions, fasts, demonstrations, human chains, meetings etc. without his express permission.
Pointing out that Section 41 of the Act stated that the orders passed under it by the Commissioner of Police could be in force only for 15 days, the petitioner’s counsel argued before Justice P. Rajamanickam that the officer had been mechanically reissuing the orders fortnight after fortnight, citing reasons like obstruction to free flow of traffic, inconvenience to movement of the general public and VIPs, and disruption to law and order.
Such orders curtailed the rights of the citizens to assemble at will and protest peacefully, he said.
Additional Public Prosecutor M. Mohamed Riyaz told the court that every order promulgated by the Commissioner of Police under Section 41A of the Act had a sanction of law, and therefore, the petitioner cannot question it.
