March 7, 2021, Mayur Vihar-1, Delhi.

This is the report from the Garden Court (बाग़- ी – कोर्ट) of Mayur Vihar, Phase 1, Delhi.

BTW: Mayur Vihar-1 is an East Delhi colony. It is the home of multiple group housing societies including Indian Foreign Service (of foreign service employees), Hindustan Times (of Hindustan Times Newspaper employees), Anandlok (of UPSC employees), Supreme Enclave (of Supreme Court Lawyers), FineHome (of Finance and Home Ministry employees), Sahyog (of Delhi University Teachers), NavBharat Times (of NavBharat Newspaper employees), Manu (of lawyers), Indian Airlines (of Indian Airlines employees), Gyandeep (of IIT employees) and many others.

In a sense, Mayur Vihar is the highest professional density area on this planet.

In the rear of these societies runs a municipal garden and that is the seat of Baghi Court. The normal hours of the court are 5pm to 7pm, all 7 days.

It is a Suo Motu court

On March 7, the court was brought to order under the bench of Sher Singh. It was a 11 member bench.

The matter before the court was Supreme court’s decision of March 3 in the matters of Rajat Sharma’s petition to charge Farooq Abdullah for sedition for his speech during a TV interview.

The decision of the Supreme Court (Bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul ) was recited as follows:

“The expression of a view which is dissent from a decision taken by the Central Government itself cannot be said to be seditious. There is nothing in the statement (of Abdullah) which we find so offensive as to give a cause of action for a court to initiate proceedings.” Further noting the petitioners had nothing to do with the issue, the Bench said, “This is clearly a case of publicity interest litigation for the petitioners to get their names in the Press.”

What Farooq Abdullah had said was recited as follows:

“China has never accepted the nullification of Article 370 (which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir and was abrogated by Parliament on August 5 last year). They have said, till you restore Article 370, we won’t stop because now it has become an open issue. Inshallah, I wish that our people get help from their might and our Articles 370 and 35-A get restored.”

After due arguments and discussion, the Baghi court decided as follows

  1. The petition should have been for charging for treason and not sedition.
  2. Every citizen of India including overseas citizen of India (OCI) have everything to do in such matters and file petition.
  3. To call Rajat Sharma’s petition ‘publicity interest litigation’ is untenable as Rajat Sharma already dominates Prime time in India.
  4. Rajat Sharma should pay 50,000 in coins, deliberately adding 5 paisa coin extra to see whether treasury is able to detect over payment and duly refund it.
  5. Instead of depositing 50,000 in lawyers welfare fund, it should be deposited in Municipal Garden Maintenance Fund.
  6. Rajat Sharma  may even consider crowdfunding 50,000 to see how many support him with their purse.
  7. Rajat Sharma should actually try crowdfunding 1,00,000 to pay 50,000 in coins in advance for the next similar.
  8. The court appreciates every honorable member wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, though voice becomes a fuzzy a bit sometime during arguments.

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.