SC to hear Shaheen Bagh matter on Wednesday

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Wednesday pleas seeking removal of the crowd protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) from Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area.

The apex court had adjourned the hearing in the matter after the interlocutors appointed by it submitted their report in a sealed cover on Monday.

A division bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and also comprising KM Joseph will take up the matter on February 26 after going through the report.

The two amicus curiae submitted their report in a sealed cover to the apex court. "We will go through the report," Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had said.

The Supreme Court-appointed mediators -- senior advocates Sanjay Hegde and Sadhana Ramachandran -- had last week engaged with the anti-CAA protestors for shifting the venue from Shaheen Bagh.

The top court had last week appointed senior advocates -- Sanjay Hedge, Sadhana Ramachandran and former bureaucrat Wajahat Habibullah -- as interlocutors to talk to the protestors here and urge them to clear the road and protest at an alternate site.

Thousands of people, including a large number of Muslim women, have been staging a sit-in protest at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area since mid-December last year against the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).

A public interest litigation (PIL) in the matter, filed by Nand Kishore Garg and Amit Sahni through their lawyer Shashank Deo Sudhi, sought appropriate directions to the Centre and others concerned for removal of protestors from Shaheen Bagh near Kalindi Kunj.

The petition seeks appropriate direction to the respondents, including the Centre, for laying down "detailed, comprehensive and exhaustive guidelines relating to outright restrictions for holding protest/agitation" leading to obstruction of the public space.