The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday raised concerns over the proposed closure of entry and exit gates at 57 Delhi Metro stations ahead of the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) protest in the national capital. Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant questioned the need for such measures saying they may cause immense hardship to people.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) announced that entry and exit gates at 57 stations would be closed from 9 pm on Friday, October 9, ahead of demonstrations demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

SC Flags Hardship for Daily Commuters

 Expressing concern over the decision, CJI Surya Kant said the court was mainly worried about the closure of the entire metro station entry points and the hardships it may cause to the people.

"We are mainly concerned about the complete closure of these metro station entries. We have serious concerns about this," the Chief Justice said.

He observed that not everybody has a car or private transport and said that the public transport was the mainstay of people.

"Everybody does not have a car. Everybody does not have access to private transport. People depend on public transport. This cannot be done," he said.

Students, Employees and Senior Citizens Could Be Affected

The CJI said that the concerns of the court were not about the protestors or any particular group of people but was general.

He said that the problems of students, employees and senior citizens who travel from Gurugram, Greater Noida, East Delhi and South Delhi to their respective workplaces and vice versa would be impacted.

"We are speaking on behalf of the common citizens of this city," he said, adding that the security forces have the right to take any measures.

CJI Calls for Proportionate Security Measures

 The Chief Justice said that the authorities can certainly restrict unruly movement of people but that does not give them the right to stop all movement of people.

"If you want to restrict unruly movement, you can do so. But that does not mean you can bring everything to a halt and leave people without any transport facility," he said.

Talking about taking proportionate preventive measures, CJI Surya Kant said, "You have to prevent certain things. Take measures only to the extent necessary to prevent them. But that does not mean you should use a hammer to kill a fly. That principle must be kept in mind."