Bombay High Court rejects case against lawyer: Every citizen has right to protest

While dismissing a case against a lawyer and some farmers for throwing cotton at the Maharashtra Agriculture minister’s convoy, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court said that every citizen has a right to agitate, though not unfettered.
A bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and SG Chapalgaonkar was hearing a plea for dismissing an FIR filed by one Milind Sonar, a political party worker from Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district.
Petitioner Sharad Mali, along with a few others, agitated on March 22, 2023, on the route between Amalner and Erandol when the state’s Agriculture minister was scheduled to travel on the same route.
When the minister’s convoy reached near Chopda road, Mali, along with 12 others named and about 8 other unnamed persons, “formulated unlawful assembly and by going in front of the convoy, forced the convoy to stop. Then they threw cotton and empty curtains and raised slogans, thereby creating chaos,” said the prosecution.
The protestors were charged for setting hurdles by restraining the Minister from proceeding further. The protestors were charged under sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly with common object) of the Indian Penal Code and some sections of the Maharashtra Police Act.
The bench observed that when it was said that cotton was thrown and that the petitioner, along with other farmers, agitated against the price offered by the Maharashtra government.
“There could not have been then an intention or common object. It is not stated in the FIR that though the convoy was stopped, the Minister had heard the representatives of the persons agitating there and therefore, it could not be said that there was any wrongful restraint. Though it is stated that prohibitory orders were promulgated to maintain public peace, every agitation cannot be taken as disturbing the public peace,” the bench said.