Protesters cannot occupy public places indefinitely, the Supreme Court said on October 7 in a hugely influential verdict on a batch of petitions against the anti-citizenship law protests at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that cleared the parliament in 2019. "Dissent and democracy go hand in hand," the top court observed, stressing that "protests like these are not acceptable". "We appreciate the right to peacefully protest and it can be (held) at designated places only," the court stressed. A three-judge bench of Justices SK Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari delivered the judgment on a batch of petitions that called for a decision if there can be "an indefinite period of protests in a common area (that) creates inconvenience for others". The bench had reserved its verdict at the last hearing on September 21. The court had earlier noted that there cannot be a "universal policy" since circumstances may "vary" from case-to-case. Delhi's Shaheen Bagh had emerged as the epicentre of anti-CAA protests in 2019 where the protesters, mostly women & children, sat for more than three months. Shaheen Bagh protests had received worldwide attention and the Time Magazine honoured 82-year-old Bilkis dadi, the face of the movement, as one of the 100 "most influential people of 2020". Critics have said the contentious citizenship law, which the government says enables citizenship for non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh & Afghanistan if they escaped religious persecution and entered India before 2015, is ‘anti-Muslim’.
