The Supreme Court has ordered the constitution of a committee comprising a former Supreme Court judge, a former chief justice of High Court, and a senior retired police officer to look into the issues arising out of the protests, Cockroach Janta Party protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, including the police excesses and the violence against police personnel.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Suryakant, Justice Joy Malya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana said, the high-powered panel will be entrusted with the task of fact-finding and submitting periodic reports so that court can pass necessary directions.
‘We will provide all necessary infrastructure facilities to the committee. We are quite sure that the committee will give an immediate voice and audience to any victim who approaches it. We will await the recommendations which the committee will make from time to time, and the necessary legal consequences must follow,” the Bench said.
Besides fact-finding, the committee will also look into the allegations concerning sexual assault and online harassment of female protesters and victimizations of other vulnerable persons through social media.
The order was passed while the court was hearing a batch of petitions concerning protests at Jantar Mantar, and in Bihar and other parts of the country over alleged leaks of NEET and other examination papers.
However, the bench set aside a few concerns over the protests, like facial recognition technology, surveillance and privacy, which were ultimately decided by them and not the committee. “The committee can examine the factual questions, including whether the use of force was excessive. Pursuant to its report, the larger legal and constitutional questions concerning facial recognition technology will be considered by this Court,” it said.
Additionally, the court today said it will consider using its powers under Article 142, extraordinary power of Supreme Court to do complete justice, to quash the FIRs involving students, but the cases involving persons with serial criminal antecedents can be dealt with separately.
According to a previous submission, nearly 2873 persons were found to have seen serious criminal antecedents, including charges of murder, attempt to murder, dacoity, rape, and offences under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, in the FIRs that were filed against the protesters.