The Telangana High Court on Wednesday pulled up the state government, observing that several people were approaching it after being denied permission by the police to hold public meetings and stage protests.
Issuing notices to the Principal Secretary (Home) and Director General of Police, the court sought to know under what guidelines permissions are accorded to those who wished to hold a meeting.
The court was hearing a petition by the Raza-E-Ilahi Foundation, which had sought permission from the Hyderabad police commissioner for a protest programme against the Centre's controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
While hearing the petition, Justice Tadakamalla Vinod Kumar reportedly expressed displeasure that several such cases were being heard by the court over the last few months.
Asking the police officials to frame guidelines with a broad framework, the court ordered them to either accept or reject applications based on the guidelines and clearly mention the reason why permission was being rejected.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) have taken a stand against the CAA, even voting against it in Parliament.
Recently, the Chief Minister even said that a resolution would be passed against CAA in the state's Legislative Assembly during the upcoming Budget session.
However, groups protesting against the legislation in Hyderabad are unhappy with the state government for suppressing peaceful protests.
The city has been witnessing flash protests, mostly during night time, as the police are not allowing any group to stage a sit-in or take out rallies. Police are even filing cases against the protesters, prompting them to question the contradiction between what KCR is saying and what his government is doing on the ground.
The denial of permission to several groups including women and students to stage protests has angered them and they are now cautioning the TRS government that they can't be silenced for long.