[Vandalism outside CM Arvind Kejriwal residence] Delhi Court denies bail to 8 accused

A Delhi Court has denied bail to eight men arrested in connection with a recent case of vandalism outside the official residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal [State v. Chander Kant Bhardwaj & Ors]..Additional Sessions Judge Naveen Kumar Kashyap said it prima facie appeared that the accused were among those who had damaged public property and caused injury to the police officials."Thus, prima facie it is clear that their fundamental right to peacefully protest is exceeded by them knowingly/intentionally,” the Court held..The order further underlined,“There is no doubt that right to assemble and protest by political party is a fundamental right. But having noted so it can also be noted that such right is subject to certain restrictions and not an uncontrolled one. In the present case, it is not a simple case that they protested and ended their protest then and there. But as per the investigation carried and reply filed by the Police, despite telling protesters and their leaders, including the present applicants, they can protest at a particular place, they did not comply with the same.”Despite the police telling the protesters and their leaders that they can protest at a particular place, they did not comply with the same, the Court noted..The Court noted that at three different security layers of barricades, the accused had violated the directions of the police officials. Moreover, the applicants had no regard to the directions issued by the High Court that no protest is allowed at the Chief Minister's house.“Further, it may be noted that such protesters/applicants had no regard even to the directions issued by the High Court which were communicated to them, as per the reply of Delhi Police, that no protest is allowed at CM house, as they still continued with their protest,” the order stated.Judge Kashyap also remarked that a society expects responsibility and accountability from its members, and it desires that the citizens should obey the law, respecting it as a cherished social norm. “Therefore, when an individual behaves in a disharmonious manner ushering in disorderly thing which the society disapproves, the legal consequences are bound to follow,” he said..Senior Advocates Kirti Uppal, Ajay Burman and Pawan Narang, along with Advocates Sunil Dalal, KK Tyagi, Amit Raghav, Prateek Tanwar, Neeraj, Divya Darshan Sharma, Rajesh Mishra, Sanket Gupta, Satya Ranjan, Himanshu Sethi, Mohit Sablok, Avneesh, Vikas Aggarwal, Raj Kumar, Ramesh Chander, Neetu Singh, Mohit Raghav, Shiv Kumar and DD Sharma represented the accused persons.Addition Public Prosecutor Mohd Iqrar appeared for the State..According to Delhi Police’s tweets on Wednesday, the protests by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) members were in relation to a recent statement by Kejriwal on the movie "The Kashmir Files". As per reports, a boom barrier and CCTV camera were broken in the incident and the main gate was rammed into before being sprayed with red paint.As a precautionary measure, the Delhi Police claimed to have barricaded the area and even used water cannons to disperse the protesting crowd.“They were removed after information was received,” said one of the tweets from Delhi Police’s official Twitter handle..Last week, the Delhi High Court called for a status report on the incident. While it stopped short of issuing notice to the Delhi Police, it stated,"If you feel so sensitive to notice being issued, we will say you appear on advance notice. We want to be satisfied that you are taking matter seriously.".[Vandalism outside Arvind Kejriwal residence] We want to know that you are taking it seriously: Delhi High Court to Police.[Read Order]