The Supreme Court has recorded that no future action or FIR should be taken against protesters, young people or students solely for participating in protests, according to Saurav Das, spokesperson of Coackroch Janta Party.
Das said the undertaking was set out in an affidavit submitted by all states and was taken on record by the court. He described it as a future safeguard for young people across the country.
He said Delhi Police had raised concerns, based on facial-recognition technology, about the presence of 2,800 people described by police as hardened criminals at the protest. Das said the Supreme Court ordered that a separate, new FIR be filed in Delhi against those identified individuals and that the investigation would continue.
According to Das, the position taken in discussions with the government was that if any of those individuals had committed a serious violent offence, including rape or murder, at a protest site, they should be investigated, prosecuted and jailed.
Das also said the government assured the Supreme Court that compensation, described as an honourable compensation, would be credited to families’ bank accounts within 90 days. He said the court accepted the assurance and recorded it in its judicial order, giving it judicial sanction.
The amount of compensation and the identity of the families concerned were not specified in the remarks. The key next steps will be the filing and progress of the separate Delhi FIR and the promised payment within 90 days.
