The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed All India Students' Association (AISA) chief Neha Bora's plea against a bond notice of ₹10,000 issued against her by a Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) court in connection with her October 16 detention.
"Writ petition is rejected. However, there are certain directions give for the magistrate to take care of. All the material to be furnished to her," said Justice Subramonium Prasad in his order, as per a Bar and Bench report.
He added that the SEM would also look at whether Section 135 of the BNSS would apply to Bora's plea against the ₹10,000 bond.
“Whether (Section) 135 would warrant a production of the bond at the very first instance, or it's only during the course of the inquiries, and further incident take place, which gives the danger or not ... These are matters, the magistrate will take into account,” the court said.
On October 18, a SEM court order had asked her to furnish the ₹10,000 personal bond just days after she was detained for the protest at Mandi House amid the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) Tiranga march.
Issued under Sections 126 and 130 of the BNSS, the bond notice was also read with Section 135(3), citing three reasons: sloganeering at Mandi House, repeated protests around a de-notified Jantar Mantar despite prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS, and instigating people to participate in a protest at Central Park. The bond also came with a surety that she would “maintain peace during the period of inquiry".
It is this application of Section 135 that again came into focus in Friday's hearing.
This comes a day after Bora's counsel, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, told the court that both her brief detention, as well as the Delhi Police's bond notice, were "completely illegal", as per another Bar and Bench report.
"The only thing that happened was that she raised some slogans and she was detained," her counsel told the court, specifying that she had only called for a protest at Mandi House, while the CP protest was called by "some other organisation".
Amid the case, Bora had also received an invitation to join the Friday protest against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, though her response to it has not yet been confirmed.
More than 100 protesters who had planned to march to the Election Commission of India (ECI) were detained by the Delhi Police after the imposition of Section 163 of the BNSS in central Delhi.
