Kerala High Court News: The Kerala High Court today (February 21) dismissed a plea seeking to declare as ‘illegal’ and ‘unconstitutional’ the arrest and detention for waving black flags in protest.
A bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Murali Purushothaman had last year dismissed a plea seeking compensation for people booked for waving black flags to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in protest. Advocate Rajesh Vijayan, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the detailed order giving the reasons for dismissal of the petition is not yet available.
The case assumes significance as several Youth Congress workers were arrested or detained in the past few days for showing black flags to the Chief Minister of Kerala or for allegedly planning to do so while he was visiting Kozhikode and other places in the state. were in the districts.
The petition by Sam Joseph also sought an inquiry into the alleged professional misconduct by the authorities concerned, who on June 11 last year took into preventive custody two transgenders who had arrived at the venue of a function near Kaloor Metro station here . Suspected of wearing a black dress, they had come there to protest.
The petition also sought a direction to the petitioner to make available to the police the documents relating to the alleged illegal detention of transgenders.
The transgenders claimed that they were going to the metro station but were detained by the police as they were dressed in black and the chief minister was attending a function nearby.
The police, on the other hand, had argued that both were BJP workers, who had reached there to protest.
The Congress and the BJP staged widespread protests at various places last year and showed black flags to Vijayan after the revelations made by Swapna Suresh, accused of smuggling gold through the diplomatic bag case.
(With PTI inputs)
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