New Delhi, Nov 2 (Inditop.com) The Supreme Court is to hear Tuesday a lawsuit challenging its administrative order regulating the entry of a person to the court’s high security zone for the purpose of pleading his case personally.
The apex court registry had issued orders regulating the entry of petitioners in person to the court’s high security zone, housing court rooms and judges’ chambers, in the wake of the March 20 incident this year, when four women officials of a Mumbai-based music school, appearing in person to plead their case, had hurled a slipper at erstwhile Justice Arijit Pasayat during a hearing.
The apex court registry’s order of May 5 this year stipulates that no person, seeking to plead his case personally, would be allowed entry to the court’s high security zone without the written permission of an apex court registrar.
Also according to the order, the petitioner-in-person would be allowed entry only up to and inside the courtroom in which his case is listed for hearing and only on the date on which it is slated for hearing. Additionally, he would be allowed entry inside the court room, duly escorted by a security personnel.
The order is silent on allowing litigants access to various branches of court’s registry to take various procedural steps for filing a lawsuit in the apex court.
The lawsuit challenging this order has been filed by a Rajasthan-based civil society group, the Suraj India Trust.
In his lawsuit, the trust’s chairman Rajiv Daiya has contended that accessing courts, including the Supreme Court of India, without any hindrance is a fundamental right of Indian citizens. Article 32 of the Constitution entitles a citizen to approach the apex court directly in case of breach of any of his other fundamental rights, Daiya added.
Daiya contended that this fundamental right of citizens to access courts cannot be curtailed even by parliament, let aside an administrative order of the court’s registry – that too on the mere apprehension of threat to its security.
The authorities are welcome to take various steps to provide security within the court premises, but without impinging upon the citizens’ right access it freely, Daiya’s lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also objected to the provision of the court registry’s order, which stipulated that petitioners-in-person would be duly escorted by a security personnel.
This would make the petitioner-in-person, approaching the apex court court, look like an accused, being produced without handcuffs before a trial court by police to answer the criminal charges against them, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit pointed out that an advocate representing a litigant does all the work in the court premises on behalf of litigants and is allowed various facilities and freedom of movement for their work. It noted it was ironic that the litigants presenting their cases personally would not be allowed the same facilities and freedoms that various courts accord to advocates on their behalf.
An advocate cannot be put on a higher pedestal than the litigants themselves, for whom the advocates are supposed to work and secure justice, the lawsuit said.
