A plea in the Supreme Court was filed on Friday, which sought direction to remove protesting farmers from the Delhi borders immediately, saying that it poses hardships to commuters due to the road blockades and such gatherings might lead to a spike in Covid-19 cases.
The plea seeks the top court’s directions to authorities to open roads at the borders, shift the farmers to an allotted place, and provide guidelines on social distancing norms and wearing of masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The petition, filed by law student Rishabh Sharma, has claimed that Delhi Police had on November 27 allowed these protesters to hold demonstrations peacefully at Nirankari ground at Burari here but despite that they have blocked the borders of Delhi.
“Because of the ongoing protest at the Delhi borders, the roads have been blocked by the protesters and closed border points, which have affected vehicular traffic and people who are travelling to and from Delhi to get medical treatment in reputed government/private hospitals situated in Delhi are also affected”, the plea, which was filed through advocate Om Prakash Parihar, said.
“It is pertinent to note that in view of the prevention of the community spread of the pandemic disease Coronavirus (Covid-19), it is very necessary to remove the gathering and this protest is further blocking the roads for all the emergency/medical services which are very much required to be supplied within the territory of Delhi in order to stop the spread of coronavirus..,” it said.
The plea referred to the October 7 verdict of the SC where it had said that public spaces cannot be occupied indefinitely and demonstrations expressing dissent have to be in designated places alone. The verdict came in view of the road blockade at Shaheen Bagh, where women and children protested against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
“The petitioner is seeking urgent direction from this court to issue a direction for immediate removal/ dispersal of such mass gathering of protestors at Delhi borders and shift them to the place already allotted by the Delhi police in view of immediate threat of coronavirus infection and spread,” the petition added.
It said that the protesters can carry out peaceful agitations when the pandemic threat is over, and keeping in mind the increase in the number of cases, it is important that the protest must be stopped at once.
Traffic moved at snail's pace at several border points of the national capital as police kept key routes connecting Delhi to Haryana and Uttar Pradesh closed in view of the farmers' protest against the new farm laws, which entered its ninth day on Friday.