CJP's Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka move Delhi HC; cases handed to Crime Branch

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka have approached the Delhi High Court to challenge their judicial custody.

NEW DELHI: CJP's Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka Tuesday approached Delhi HC challenging their judicial custody, a day before the special executive magistrate decides whether to extend their custody.The two were detained on Oct 13 after they climbed a gate to enter Jantar Mantar, which has been denotified as a protest site, to protest against SIR. They have since spent 7 days in custody - initial five days, followed by a two-day extension that expires on Wednesday. Meanwhile, police have transferred the Oct 13 cases against them to Crime Branch.Das and Ranka have sought an urgent hearing, but the court is closed for Dussehra.

If the executive magistrate releases them Wednesday, their petition will become redundant.However, until late Tuesday, the court’s cause list didn’t have any case listed for hearing this week. However, sources said a call will be taken Wednesday if urgent listing has to be permitted and a vacation bench assembled for the same.In their petition, the two said their two-day remand violated the legal procedure and their ‘Right to Liberty’ under Article 21 of the Constitution.

They continue to remain in custody for six days despite submitting the required sureties multiple times, it said.“The mandatory procedure under Section 140 BNSS was not followed for rejecting the surety, showing complete misapplication of the law in the impugned order. That delay and obstruction in the acceptance and verification of sureties frustrates the very purpose of release,” the plea said.

The plea further argues that restricting the petitioners’ liberty in the interest of public order requires a “proximate and real nexus with disturbance of public order” and not a remote possibility, pointing out that the issue of protest at a denotified site is, at its highest, a question of regulation, not a threat to public order.