Telangana HC permits BJP protest at Dharna Chowk

Telangana High Court directed Hyderabad City police to permit the Telangana BJP to conduct ‘Maha Dharna’ at Dharna Chowk

Hyderabad: Justice B Vijaysen Reddy of the Telangana High Court on Friday directed the Hyderabad City police to permit the Telangana BJP to conduct ‘Maha Dharna’ at Dharna Chowk, Indira Park, from 10 am to 5.30 pm.

The judge, however, directed petitioner Premendar Reddy to furnish the details of the BJP Ministers and national leaders participating in the event to the police by 9 pm on Friday. The judge also warned that provocative speeches would be dealt with in accordance with the law while restricting the number of participants to a maximum of 500 at any point in time.

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The reasons stated by the police — that the protest would cause traffic congestion, inconvenience to patients at the nearby hospitals, and law and order issues by miscreants — were found baseless by the judge. Accordingly, he disposed of the case.

Local bodies’ polls

A division Bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N Tukaramji, on Friday wanted to know from the State Election Commission (SEC) the time within which they are going to conduct elections for the local bodies in the State.

The Bench was dealing with a PIL case filed by R Baskar, which sought directions for conducting elections to about 6,000 posts including 300 gram sarpanches, 300 upa sarpanches, nine ZPTCs and 5,329 ward members.

The Bench issued notices to the SEC and Commissioner, Panchayat Raj, and adjourned the case to April 27 for their response.