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The police on Monday submitted before the Gujarat High Court that while it has listed all rules and orders framed under Section 33 of the Gujarat Police (GP) Act on its website, it will require more time to upload the text of the legislation. The court remarked that the police can’t escape from publishing the details on the site.
A division bench of Justices A S Supehia and M R Mengdey was hearing a contempt petition filed by Ahmedabad resident Swati Goswami against city Police Commissioner Prem Vir Singh for “wilful and deliberate disobedience” of a high court order dated January 17.
The high court had in January this year held that the special police branch cannot claim exemption from disclosure of rules and had directed the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner to publish on its website all the rules and orders framed under Section 33 (1) (o) of the Act, which pertains to regulating the conduct of and behaviour or action of persons constituting assemblies and processions on or along the streets.
The order had further directed the Ahmedabad city police to comply with requirements of section 4 of the RTI Act and publish and make available on their website the texts of all rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records held by it or under its control.
Advocate Bandish Soparkar, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that while the first part of the order has been complied with wherein the website lists the rules, Act, regulations etc, the second part remains to be done.
The Assistant Government Pleader (AGP), however, submitted that the texts are available publicly otherwise and to publish the texts of such regulations specifically on the Ahmedabad city police website, the authorities will have to update the website which will take time.
Justice Supehia remarked orally, “Rule 4 (of the RTI Act) doesn’t say that if it is available somewhere else, you can collect from there. From your website, it should be there.” The bench sought that the authority file an affidavit mentioning when it would make available the text of such Rules and Acts on its website.
Addressing the AGP, Justice Supehia further said, “Directions (in earlier court order) are you have to do all these things as per Rule 4 (of the RTI act)…that time has gone (when information-heavy websites would stop functioning)… HC website is working with 1 lakh judgments… This rule is framed for the convenience of citizens. You have no escape, you have got to do it.” The bench has posted the matter to July 6.
Earlier, the police had submitted that it is unable to find the rules under which the police processes and rejects applications for protests in the city.
Goswami, in her original petition filed before the high court in 2020, had contended that she was denied permission for a peaceful assembly to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019. The police, while denying her permission, had cited the law and order situation as well as traffic problems as reasons.
