CALCUTTA, 27 September 2004 — West Bengal’s warring political parties have joined ranks to oppose a Calcutta High Court order banning the construction of any wooden stage or dais on the Brigade Parade Ground — the city’s biggest park traditionally used for public rallies — making it virtually impossible for any meeting to be held in future.
From Marxist Jyoti Basu to the Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee and heavyweights of other political parties, top politicians are attacking the court verdict and threatening to file an appeal in the Supreme Court.
“This is a joke. How can any judge pass an order which makes it impossible for political parties to hold public meeting? This is an attack on basic freedoms,” said Basu, former West Bengal chief minister and CPI (M) politburo member.
The fiery Mamata went a step further. She announced that her Trinamool Congress would go ahead with preparations for its December rally in the Brigade Parade Ground regardless of the verdict which she branded “highly irresponsible”.
Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin and Mujibur Rahman have addressed public meetings at the historic Brigade Parade Ground.
Besides outlawing the construction of any temporary or permanent structure made of bamboo, steel or iron, the high court restored overall control of the ground to the army — another major blow to civilian authorities, particularly the police, which was so far empowered to give permission for organizing rallies.
Disposing of a petition by the army that Calcutta police had usurped its powers, a division bench of Chief Justice A.N. Roy and Justice A.K. Mitra ruled Saturday that the “ground must be kept in a condition so that military parades can take place at any time of the year.” Besides the army, environmentalists petitioned the court that rallies badly polluted the city’s green belt. They argued that as the police is a slave of political parties, its powers to grant permission for rallies must be revoked.
While the ban on building podiums, erecting poles for microphones and wooden barricades for crowd control makes public meeting impossible, there is no bar on joggers, morning walkers and their pets.
The judges outlawed even temporary structures and restored control of the ground to the army after the state government conceded it had no jurisdiction to give permission for rallies or structures as the land belonged to the military.
