Delhi High Court hears plea by Neha Bora challenging bond notice: LIVE UPDATES

Gopal S refers to 7 judge Supreme Court bench in Madhu Limaye case.

Gopal S: Stage 1 is substance; stage 2 is the inquiry.

Gopal S refers to Section 135 BNSS.

Court: So your third argument would be no independent opinion of the SEM?

Gopal S: Yes, in fact, there is no opinion at all.

Gopal S: The notice is ex facie constitutionally wrong and legally wrong.

Court: The subjective satisfaction I cannot go into unless the subjective satisfaction is such that... The compass is exceedingly narrow.

Court: Therefore, again, is it not more prudent for you to wait till this is over. And then hit this court on Saturday to trouble me on a Sunday.

Court: As I told Abhik yesterday, is it not better for you to 135 inquiry to be completed?

Gopal S: These 4 sections are important because if for example under 128 a notice is issued to a person X and assume that he is going to commit a cognisable offence...

Court: When you read 135, I want to know what is your input on proviso after 135 (3). Read the first proviso. How do you see 135... I am saying this in your favour. How do you read this proviso in respect to what is being transpired now?

Gopal S takes the court to relevant sections of the BNSS.

Gopal S: There are a dozen judgments. I don't want to burden Justice Prasad in the middle of the vacation; that is why we have given a select few judgments.

Court explains the procedure.

Court: Tell me where you and I do not agree on this?

Gopal S (on notice): What am I expected to say? How do I respond to this?

Court: The First point is clear, the second I am not with you as of now.

Gopal S: First, it [notice] is cut and paste which vitiates it. Second, even for an interim bond an inquiry is essential. The magistrate could not have birthed the idea of a personal bond until the inquiry into the necessity of the bond was complete.

Bench: Because of last three word in the notice.... The purport of the notice is please satisfy me during the period of inquiry you should not give a bond. On satisfaction the magistrate can decide... Should we go to that extent or should we confine ourselves to the notice issued under 126 and the reason behind it?

Gopal S: My point is that this question of personal bond etc. does not arise at this stage until the inquiry is complete. On this we have the 7 judge bench judgement of the Supreme Court.

Bench: We are in pre-135. I want you to address whether what this court is doing under Article 22 of the Constitution is the job of magistrate under 135 (3) BNSS.

Gopal S: This is factually wrong because I did not say anything about CP. It says, "hoist the national flag without permission." I am surprised anyone can say this. No permission is needed to hoist the national flag.

Gopal S: Just see the notice. It claims to be under 126 and 130 BNSS. The question is does this have substance.

He reads the notice issued by SEM.

Gopal S: It is admitted that there was a direction by senior officers to initiate the procedure under Section 126. It is relevant because the SEM here is also an ACP.

Advocate Abhik Chimni (also appearing for Bora) is reading the qalandara.

Gopal S: There is no 163 there but loudspeakers are telling us that 163 is in place.

The qalandara is being read in the court.

Gopal S: The first safeguard I have is I can reach out to a lawyer or family immediately. The next day there is a qalandara submitted to SEM.

Gopal S: At night she was taken to RK Puram police station. No one knew about it till wee hours of the morning.

Gopal S: The protest at CP was organised by some other organisation. She had given a call for Mandi House. It has now become a practise that when people are protesting, they are taken away, not allowed to get in touch with lawyer, nothing.

Gopal S: On the evening of October 16, when she called for the protest, when she goes to the Mandi House area, she comes to be detained in barely 10-15 minutes. At that time she had not been guilty of any offence. The only thing that happened was that she raised some slogans and she was detained. We believe that it is completely illegal detention.

Gopal S: This is issued by her promising a meeting at Mandi House. What is important is what is missing from this post. There is no question of incitement to violence, breaking of any law, breach peace, upsetting public tranquility, inviting congregation in order to commit any offence.

Bench: Your arguments are on the wordings of Section 130 and 126.

Gopal S: On October 15 there is a press conference by the petitioner in Press Club. On October 16 at 4 PM a post is put up. This was a reaction to the fact that Jantar Mantar was suddenly denotified.

Gopal S refers to Jantar Mantar on a map.

Gopal S: She has been asking for reforms. Over time, she has put out tweets and exhorted people to join.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan: It is a very narrow issue wrt to notice under Section 126 and 130 of BNSS. Petitioner is a leader of AISA and very active in public life. The facts are that over a period of time certain protests have arisen in the country as it the want against what the government does. As far as my client is concerned there has been no exhortation to violence it has been entirely peaceful.

ASG Chetan Sharma: We have objections to both maintainability and entertainability.

Hearing starts