'All of them should go to jail': Delhi HC expresses anguish over protesters who stalled metro services, dumped garbage

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday suggested penal action against protesters who stall metro rail services or dump garbage on the roads, causing public inconvenience.

"All of them should go to jail," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said referring to such protests.

File image of Delhi High Court. News18

The observation by the bench came as it issued notice to the Centre, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), Central Industrial Security Forces (CISF) and the police to seek their stand on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) demanding action against those responsible for the alleged stalling of metro train services in the city on 31 May.

The metro services were disrupted for a few hours on Delhi Metro's Blue Line, following a scuffle between DMRC and CISF staff over a parking issue at the Dwarka Sector 21 metro station in southwest Delhi.

According to the petition, a scuffle occurred around 12.30 pm on May 31 after the DMRC and CISF staff got into an altercation when the tyre of a vehicle, apparently belonging to the latter, was deflated as it was parked in an unauthorised zone outside the premises of the metro station.

The plea claimed that since the vehicle was parked illegally, the station manager "had ordered to deflate the tyre".

The petition by one Puran Chand Arya was clubbed by the court with another PIL over the 24 May agitation by New Delhi Municipal Council's contractual sanitation workers who had dumped garbage outside prominent government buildings like the Shastri Bhavan and the Rail Bhavan in Lutyen's Delhi, demanding regularisation of jobs and better wages.

The bench directed that both matters should be heard together.