HYDERABAD: The Prajarajyam party and BJP on Monday filed separate writ petitions
in the AP High Court seeking suspension of the circular
memorandum of the DGP,
which imposed a blanket ban on political roadshows in the state.
PRP general secretary Allu Arvind and BJP floor leader G Kishan Reddy moved the vacation court with a plea that this `unlawful' memo was disabling them from addressing the citizens of the state at a time when the state was heading towards elections in the next two months. They claimed that the DGP had no legal competence to issue the circular as he had no power, authority or jurisdiction to do so.
Defending the concept of roadshows, the petitioners said this was introduced only to lessen the inconvenience of the people. This was the reverse process of a stationed public meeting to bring the leader to the masses and not vice versa, they said.
When there is no prohibition on padayatra (the one that the present chief minister YSR undertook in 2004) or `Chalo Assembly' __ which are also associated with participation of respective supporters in crew __ there cannot be any different treatment to a roadshow, they said.
Though the DGP's circular talks about notifying certain roads where limited convoys of leaders are allowed, the leaders said in their petition that the police authorities were registering cases against political leaders even before notifying such roads.
A circular cannot override the existing statutes and it cannot supplant the law, they said. Though this circular has not come from the legislature, it has already taken the shape and the colour of a law, they said.
The petitioners also wanted the court to declare the Police Act, 1861 as unconstitutional because it has no legislative sanction in view of certain provisions of the seventh schedule of the constitution.
