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The judge directed the police officer to grant permission for the meet on November 1 and made it clear that no one should end up causing disturbance to law and order.
| Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO
The Madras High Court has disapproved of a decision taken by Avadi police to deny permission for a closed-door meeting just because another individual had complained that the organisers had planned to discuss anti-Dravidian ideologies. The court said that people could not be prevented from expressing opinions against any particular ideology.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh wrote: “In a democratic set up, it is always possible that there will be divergent views regarding a belief or an ideology. It is not possible to compel everybody to follow the same ideology and a person is always entitled to have his reservations and opinions regarding an ideology.”
He also said: ‘Only if there is a dialogue, there is scope for evolution in the society. Hence, just because the petitioner and his organisation are going to express their opinion which may go against the popular view about Dravidian Ideology, that by itself is not a ground to prevent the petitioner from organising a meeting and that too within closed auditorium.”
The judge agreed with advocate P. Vijendran, representing the writ petitioner Senthil Mallar that the police must be directed to grant permission for the closed-door meeting on November 1 since denial of permission on the basis of an objection raised by an individual would amount to curtailing the freedom of speech and expression.
After setting aside the rejection order passed by the Inspector of Poonamallee police station for the conduct of the meeting originally scheduled on August 27, the judge directed the police officer to grant permission for the meet on November 1 and made it clear that no one should end up causing disturbance to law and order.
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