The Delhi High Court on Friday permitted the organisation of a national seminar on the theme "Understanding Fascism In Present India Context” at Harikishan Singh Surjit Bhavan, ITO, while hearing the organisers plea claiming that Delhi Police denied permission for the programme merely 36 hours before the event on Saturday. A single judge bench of Justice Tushar Rao Gedela heard the counsel appearing for the Delhi government, Commissioner of Delhi Police and Station House Officer IP Estate (Respondent 1-3) who said that the information provided in the plea was not available earlier and therefore the direction of refusal from holding the seminar had been passed. Based on the submissions made by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves appearing for the petitioners Gade Inna Reddy and Dr. M.F. Gopinath, the respondents counsel said that permission for the meeting may be granted subject to "suitable directions/conditions" passed by the court. Gonsalves said that apart from 10 keynote speakers, the other participants are strictly on an invitation basis and that they will provide a list of those persons. Keeping in view the "apprehension of mishappening" in the mind of the authorities the HC directed, that the petitioners will compile a list of invitees to the two day seminar along with details of their residence, identity cards and submit the same to SHO IP Estate by 9pm Friday. The court directed that the invitees who would reach Delhi on Saturday, for them a similar list containing their names would be handed over to the SHO "on or before by 12:00 noon tomorrow i.,e., 11.03.2023". The court also said that the petitioners will provide one contact number of a responsible person from the organisation conducting the seminar to enable the police authorities to have one contact with them. "The petitioner assures and undertakes that there shall be no cause of any untoward incident so far as the organising committee and participants are concerned," the order records. Gonsalves handed over the contacts of the two petitioners to counsel for the police authorities. Disposing off the plea the HC said, "Needless to observe that the parties are to co-operate with each other to ensure that the seminar is held in a peaceful atmosphere and no untoward incident would occur". The plea sought for quashing of a March 9 order issued by SHO police station IP Estate "unilaterally denying the permission to the Petitioners for organizing a private Programme which is a National Seminar to be conducted through a platform called ‘Bharat Bachao’ mere 36 hours (2 days) before the event". The plea claims that the petitioners are individuals from different folds of life trying to voice their opinions under the Constitutional framework and intended to organize a National Seminar through their platform ‘Bharat Bachao’, exclusively for their members which is not open for the general public. The seminar is to be conducted on March 11 and 12 in Delhi. The plea claims that payment was made for organising the seminar at HSK Surjeet Bhavan and were presented to SHO on January 24 who kept the permission hanging for more than a month and just 2 days(36 hours) before the seminar denied permission to conduct the seminar without seeking any clarifications or details from the Petitioners. The plea further claimed that similar seminars had been organised in various places across the country, the last one held on February 5 in Rajasthan.
