The Supreme Court of India on Monday decided it will watch the video of how Baba Ramdev's yoga camp in Delhi was broken up by the Delhi Police. The apex court, while hearing a petition filed by Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, said, “ We need to ensure that such cases, in which innocent citizens are being beaten up, should not happen again.In his petition, the yoga guru had contended that Union Home minister P Chidambaram’s decision to use force against him and his followers was politically motivated and taken much earlier.
Supreme Court, however, refused to make Union Home Minister P Chidambaram a party in the case at this stage. The apex court had recently asked Delhi Police to explain their behaviour and the need to resort to teargas and baton-charge in the closed enclosure when people were sleeping during yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s protest gathering at the Ramlila ground in June.
An apex court bench of Justice BS Chauhan and Justice Swatantra Kumar said that there are documents and DVDs to show that the yoga exercises were undertaken at the camp, and if that was so, what was the justification for the police to resort to baton-charge.
Delhi Police chief BK Gupta, in an affidavit to the apex court, had said that permission to use the Ramlila ground was given for a yoga camp, and not for any other purpose. The court then said that it would consider Ramdev’s plea to issue notice to Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram over the crackdown.
Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Ramdev, had referred to a press release issued by the Home Ministry and an interview by Chidambaram to Doordarshan in support of his contention that the decision to use force was taken much earlier. The court then posted the matter for hearing on July 25.